Background

HMRC has published today an update on the intranet from Mike Falvey regarding 'Building our organisation'.  This follows on from the exercise they have already conducted to review and reduce senior civil servant jobs that was first reported in circular BB/521/10. 

This next phase is where HMRC looks at 'key roles' below SCS level at tiers 5 to 8. Discussions about the impact on businesses either have been or are happening with our AGS lead negotiators responsible for each business. Our current expectation is that about 800 staff could be displaced and involved in competing for new or significantly changed jobs.     

The main issues

The DTUS has had helpful discussions with HMRC over these plans. At one stage there could have been up to 4500 staff involved in some form of competition or consideration around suitability. A combination of efforts by the DTUS and a commonsense approach from senior management has seen that impact significantly reduced.

The majority of members will not be immediately directly affected by this. That said many may be worried by changes in the organisation of their business.  Some may also be anxious about losing their manager or manager’s manager.

Some of the key issues and concerns that we have are as follows:

1. HMRC has decided to have no more than 8 levels in their organisation from the top to the bottom. It is a large and diverse organisation but, disappointingly, has not enabled any flexibility on this point in light of need in each business area.  They have then compounded this in many businesses by making the decisions about the numbers of layers at senior management level before having fully considered the levels of management required from the bottom up in the organisation.  Some members will struggle to see any reorganisation in their business as credible in light of this disjointed approach.

2. It is likely that some members will see their jobs taken away and won't be successful in getting the new or changed jobs open to competition.  Consequently some members will end up in the redeployment pool as a result of this exercise.  Such job cuts are always going to draw opposition from PCS and we will be working to ensure that everyone finds a job or gets some other satisfactory resolution.  We have though explained that if someone affected by this process was ultimately to be made redundant then this process might be seen as basis of selection for that redundancy.

4. There may be particular concern where a layer of management is removed.  This could include worries for managers regarding their workload dramatically increasing if the span of command is greater.  In addition members might be worried that large spans of command for a manager two or more grades removed from their work may result in a mechanistic and impersonal approach to how they are managed. 

5. We are concerned that some businesses or lines of business may not understand the difference between tiers and grades. All our members do important and valuable work but PCS does not expect any members at grades below HO to be identified as being in 'key roles' and any concerns around this should be reported to the AGS for the business.

6. We have not duplicated information about the process that HMRC has settled on in this circular.  We have been able to positively influence it but, as with the overall exercise, our agreement has not been sought.  Any concerns members have about the process or their individual treatment should initially be taken up with their local branch representatives or branch secretary. 

Summary

We seriously question the sense of this action at this time.  Whatever reason HMRC uses to justify this exercise it is going to be incredibly disruptive at a time when we are already going through massive changes such as office closures, job cuts in some areas and recruitment in others.  In addition we have £7 billion more revenue to get in.  We are not convinced they needed to do what they are doing in this way at this time.

Branch Action

If you have any issues and queries:

1. about individual  judgements made about you personally, e.g. performance as part of this process, then please approach me for advice.

2. about decisions made by the business around organisation such as numbers of staff in particular roles, spans of command, key roles and grading issues then approach me and I will ensure that contact is made with relevant National Negotiator.

3. about the overall process then I will pass them onto Simon Boniface in his role as Deputy Group Secretary and Departmental Trade Union Side Secretary