Civil Service Reform

John McDonnell Excerpts

Tuesday 19th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Maude]

My hon. Friend makes the point very well that it would not work if we tried to impose reform that went against the grain of the hard-working majority of civil servants, who come to work to do a good job and serve their fellow citizens, and who want to go home at the end of the day feeling that they have been able to make a difference. The plan would not have a chance of being successfully implemented. We need to call on the leadership of the civil service, but also on those throughout the civil service who see a need for change and want to be part of it.

[John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)]

It is opportune that the Public and Commercial Services Union parliamentary reception is taking place at the moment, to which all Members, including the Minister, are invited. That union represents staff who have had job cuts, privatisation, pay cuts and pay freezes and who have had their pensions undermined. They have even had their redundancy payments cut. Will he call in and explain to those staff what is meant by “Departments will undertake a review of terms and conditions to identify those that go beyond what a good…employer would provide”? Does that mean that there will be more cuts to job security, maternity cover, paternity leave or sick pay? Will he explain precisely what it means?

[Mr Maude]

Depending on how long this statement goes on, I would be delighted to call in to the PCS reception and renew old acquaintances and friendships.

To which terms and conditions does the statement refer? Civil servants hate it when outlandish and archaic terms and conditions, many of which they will not have known exist, get picked up by the media and lampooned. Such terms and conditions enable the media to project civil servants—quite unfairly—as feather-bedded and pampered, which is demoralising for them. We want the civil service to be a good, modern employer, and among the best employers, but that means that such outlying terms and conditions, which are hard to defend in the modern world, must be addressed. They include, for example, the fact that as soon as people become civil servants, they are entitled to six months’ full sick pay. That is out of kilter with anything that exists in the wider public sector or the private sector. That sort of thing will need, over time, to be addressed.