North civil service jobs to be scrapped
Aug 5 2008 by William Green, The Journal
HUNDREDS of civil service jobs will be axed in the North East within months as ministers aim to cut costs, The Journal can reveal.
Around 375 regional jobs at the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) will disappear by next March, sparking warnings from MPs and union chiefs about the impact on services to the public and the region’s economy.
The news came after Northern Rock last week announced 800 compulsory redundancies with another 500 workers leaving voluntarily, reducing the bank’s workforce from 6,000 to 4,000 by 2011.
Details of the cuts have emerged in a DWP response to a freedom of information (FOI) request made by The Journal, submitted after it announced plans to slash 12,000 jobs in its three-year business plan in February.
Nearly 10,000 people are employed by the DWP in the region, including 2,000 at Longbenton, as well as thousands of others in 47 jobcentres across the North East.
In its response to the FOI request, the DWP said workforce plans were drawn up at the start of the financial year with the proposals covering the next 12 months, but were subject to review and change.
Some 9,766 full-time staff, including 193 temporary workers, were employed by the DWP in the region at the end of June.
The figures do not include the Child Support Agency (CSA) with staff and functions moving to a new agency, the Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission, in October.
A spokesman said: “Our present plans are for the number of full-time equivalent posts to reduce by around 375 by March 2009. Based on past experience, turnover in the North East will result in around 450 staff leaving the Department between now and March 2009. Therefore, at this stage, we would expect to manage these reductions through natural wastage.”
But Simon Elliott, regional secretary of the PCS union, said: “We can ill-afford job losses in the region. We are already down to the bone in many job centre plus offices.”
Tory Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary Chris Grayling said: “We know the Government has become too expensive and people are complaining about the level of taxes.
“But at the same time we have got to be extremely careful in cutting jobs at a time of economic difficulty in parts of the country where a loss of those jobs can have a disproportionate economic impact.”
Dave Anderson, Labour MP for Blaydon, said he was concerned about whether job cuts were “going too far” and had held discussions with the PCS about their concerns.
“I will be happy if there are no compulsory redundancies, but if efficiency is just another name for cost-cutting, we will have a less efficient service. We want maximum efficiency for the people we are delivering services for,” said Mr Anderson.
DWP Permanent Secretary Leigh Lewis has warned the Government’s spending settlement had imposed greater demands than ever before.
The DWP must cut its spending by 5% in each of the next three years, delivering savings of more than £1.2bn by 2011 and increase productivity by more than 20%.
For previous stories about civil service jobs in the region, click the links below
Treasury to be quizzed over jobs
