.png)
.png)
Thousands of HMRC workers fear they may be forced out of their jobs as regional offices around the country are closed down, according to the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS).
The organisation said that the senior managers at the Revenue have refused to rule out compulsory redundancies during negotiations with union officials.
Bosses tasked with raising efficiency levels by 2011 have, however, formally committed to first exploring all other options for effectively trimming staffing levels before considering enforced job cuts.
HMRC claims that since the creation of the department four years ago, 17,000 staff members out of 105,000 have left through natural wastage, restricted recruitment, ‘management of fixed-term appointments’, and voluntary early release schemes such as approved early retirement and flexible early severance (also known as flexible early settlement), which allows eligible workers to leave their jobs with a cash settlement.
So far, no redundancies have been made, either compulsory or voluntarily, but PCS senior national officer Peter Lockheart said that members nevertheless feel as if ‘the sword of Damocles is hanging over their heads’.
‘They fear that to close more than 200 offices and comply with efficiency targets, HMRC will have no choice but to enforce compulsory moves and compulsory redundancies,’ he added. ‘It’s hard to conceive that this won’t happen’.
When such cutbacks might take place is difficult to predict, claimed Mr Lockheart, whose organisation represents more than 300,000 people within the civil service and government agencies.
Paying off employees during a recession may not be ‘politically acceptable’, he said.
The Association of Revenue and Customs (ARC) union expressed sympathy with the position of the department’s managers, whom the ARC represents.
President Terry Cook said he would ‘side with HMRC on this one’, and that the department had ‘made no attempt to hide’ its aim to ‘properly and humanely’ reduce employee numbers.
‘It is a measure of the [taxman’s] success that there have been no compulsory redundancies,’ he said.
Mr Cook added, however, that he would like to see the department exercise ‘flexibility’ when shutting down offices by trying to avoid costly moves around the country for managers of closed offices, and by allowing more remote and from-home working, ‘subject to proper security’.
A Revenue spokesperson said that employees at offices scheduled for closure ‘are being offered one-to-one discussions with their managers so that they are aware of the range of options open to them’ – and ‘wherever possible, staff will relocate to another HMRC office’.
She added: ‘We will not be asking people to make journeys beyond reasonable daily travel. However, we recognise that in some locations there may be few or no relocation options, and staff will explore alternatives in discussions with their managers’.
