DWP Estate: Office Closures

Chris Stephens Excerpts

Thursday 17th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Chris Stephens (Glasgow South West) (SNP)]

(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions if she will make a statement on proposed office closures in the Department’s estate.

[Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. May I seek your guidance on whether it is orderly for an hon. Member who has taken very substantial donations from a trade union to ask an urgent question on a matter of direct interest to that trade union?

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[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (David Rutley)]

At the Department for Work and Pensions, we constantly look at ways to improve our services. I wish to say up-front that we know it is important to communicate changes to all relevant stakeholders so that everyone understands our plans and why we are making changes.

This seems to be an unusual situation, Mr Speaker. It is very disappointing that the embargo agreed with the Public and Commercial Services Union does not seem to have been respected. Clearly, our staff should be the top priority at this time. I hope colleagues will understand that I am not able to go into all the detail this morning as we are briefing affected colleagues as we speak. In fact, the delivery of the first stage of the strategy is being announced to affected colleagues at 10.30 today—right now. The Minister for Employment will write to MPs with an affected site in their constituency after 1 pm today, and there will be a written statement to Parliament tomorrow morning. The letter to MPs will include notification of a virtual surgery that the Minister for Employment will hold on Wednesday 23 March.

The change is to back-of-house offices and will support the delivery of the Government priorities to get more people back into employment, to deliver long-term savings for the taxpayer and to meet Government commitments to modernise public services. The Department has developed a strategy that will, over the next 10 years, reshape and improve how, where and when it delivers services to claimants. The Department is transitioning to an estate that is smaller, greener and better. This will deliver substantial benefits by increasingly developing modern, secure, resilient, sustainable and automated systems to drive better experiences for our customers, colleagues and taxpayers.

The plans for the next three-year period affect the future delivery of back-of-house services—that is, services that are delivered remotely via telephone and online, without the need to see customers face to face. I assure the House that the plans do not affect Jobcentre Plus and customer-facing roles. We have been engaging fully with PCS union representatives at the sites affected since January, and PCS union representatives will be present at sites for the announcements today, as the House would expect. Our focus today is, of course, on supporting staff through the changes.

Changes to DWP estates are not unusual. Like most public services, we are always looking to meet our customers’ changing needs, reflecting developments in technology and the approaches of successive Governments. We value our staff and are working with them now to support those who will be affected by the changes as we seek to deliver the best possible services to our customers at all times.

[Chris Stephens]

Thank you, Mr Speaker, for granting this urgent question. I refer to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests and my position as chair of the PCS parliamentary group—which, of course, contains more than 100 Members of Parliament.

Will the Minister confirm that the announcement could mean that 3,000 jobs in the Department for Work and Pensions are at risk of redundancy? What measures will he take to ensure that that does not happen? Has there been an equality impact assessment of the proposals? I am thinking particularly about the impact on employees who have disabilities, for example, and may not be able to move to another location that may be miles away.

The Minister is aware that the proposals were first mooted six years ago and that the Department is looking to close offices in areas of high economic deprivation. That seems rather counterintuitive in the context of the so-called levelling-up agenda. Has an economic assessment been made of the closures and their impact on the local economies in the areas where it is proposed to close offices?

[David Rutley]

On our plans, we have, as I said, been working closely with colleagues and PCS over recent months. Around 12,000 colleagues will be moving from one site to another that is in close proximity—that will involve around 28 sites. Around 1,300 colleagues could be involved at sites where there is no other strategic site nearby. We are looking at what opportunities there are within the DWP and at what other opportunities there might be across other Government Departments. We have seen in other areas how this can work, and we are committed to doing that. Clearly, we will look at any other options that might work for those individuals.

Let me turn to the impact on the local economies. There are not normally too many people involved on each individual site, but, clearly, we have been working very hard to strengthen local economies, with the opening of a large number of new jobcentres. Again, I stress that this is about back-of house roles. This will not impact on jobcentres and the customer-facing interactions within the constituencies.