DWP Offices (Fylde)

Eric Ollerenshaw Excerpts

Wednesday 27th November 2013 Westminster Hall

[Paul Maynard]

The hon. Gentleman is entirely right. Maintaining public transport links to ensure that staff can get to the new locations has been an ongoing battle. I was grateful to one of the Minister’s predecessors, my right hon. Friend the Member for Epsom and Ewell (Chris Grayling)—now Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice—who was vociferous in saying that no change could occur at Norcross without sufficient public transport links. I agree that maintaining such links is a vital battle that we must hold.

The local branch of the Public and Commercial Services Union has informed me that, because we do not have cluster leads, there have been 35 local piecemeal meetings with different business units, here, there and everywhere, discussing all the different manoeuvres. A more streamlined system might have brought about not only a better decision, but a smoother decision that was less disruptive for those in the system.

[Eric Ollerenshaw (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate, particularly given that today is Lancashire day. I agree with him about the context. I want to underline the fact that MPs in all parties have a good relationship with the PCS union. We have always had a practical and constructive relationship. There is a problem with the suggested moves. We are not talking about the most highly paid jobs in the DWP. Suggesting that people move around and deal with the transport connections on extremely low salaries is perhaps a major factor in causing a great deal of unease, particularly among those from Fleetwood employed at the sites.

[Paul Maynard]

I agree entirely. If I was minded to be cheeky today, which I rarely am, I would suggest that many of those making such high-level human resources decisions find it very easy to get to the locations on the Fylde, because they come straight down the M55 from outside the Fylde. They have incredible access, whereas those who live on the Fylde and have to move around it struggle the most.

I urge the Minister to look again at reappointing a cluster lead to ensure that any future changes are managed with a strategic perspective to avoid such piecemeal, unco-ordinated and occasionally contradictory decisions about where people are located on the Fylde. I do not mean to be critical at all; I just observe that the best use of the DWP estate must come from looking across the Fylde as a whole, from a Fylde perspective, not just from looking at the distances on a map between one location and another. A cluster lead could also lead the debate more effectively about how we best use Fylde recourses post-2018. Great concerns remain about what will happen to the staff in 2018.

Will the Minister look at whether the Ministry of Defence’s Service Personnel and Veterans Agency, which is based at the Norcross site, can be brought into the cluster discussion? The Norcross site encompasses both the MOD and the DWP, which are the two main Departments that employ civil servants on the Fylde, so if we are discussing the fate of civil servants on the Fylde, it seems eminently sensible for both Departments to be part of that discussion. I recently heard rumours—they are no more than rumours—that 50 people are being relocated to the SPVA from Liverpool to replace 50 casual staff taken on in the Blackpool area. Clearly discussions are still ongoing about what the SPVA does—I know that that does not fall under the Minister’s remit—but all that demonstrates once again that discussions are ongoing that have real consequences, but are not coherent.

We can all recognise that the DWP faces immense financial challenges. As my hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood (Eric Ollerenshaw) mentioned, there is a strong cross-party, non-partisan relationship with the PCS on the Fylde coast. We always seek to do our best on behalf of those we represent. That is because they are doing a superb job, often on low wages and in difficult circumstances. Warbreck house does not have the most heart-warming of HR departments, to put it mildly. I have heard some appalling horror stories at times, but I want the civil servants on the Fylde to have a strong and vibrant future. A key part of achieving that will be to have a strategic cluster lead to enable the Minister to be confident that decisions take into account the reality of what is occurring on the Fylde, not just what a civil servant in Sheffield has spotted on Google Maps that morning.