Month: May 2025

Despite Left Unity’s victory in the recent DWP elections, which closed on the 13th May, the Left Opposition won the floor at the PCS DWP Group Conference that took place 19th and 20th May 2025.

LU DWP group leadership gave up building any campaign on pay after the national campaign was abandoned in May 2023, whilst LU senior officers on the National Executive Committee (NEC) blocked any campaign on pay, pensions or conditions over the last 12 months through the use of Chair’s rulings, as this website has reported on.

BLN member Reece Lawton moved the only pay motion on the agenda – Motion A1, produced below. Despite opposition from the LU leadership, who asked for it to be remitted or opposed due to its criticism of the GEC for not building on anger around last year’s 5% pay remit, the motion passed through a hand vote. Motion A1 instructed the Group Executive Committee (GEC) to recognise the necessity of moving towards a strike ballot; to build the mood for a serious campaign for a 10% pay rise, for a £15-an-hour starting wage, and for a sliding scale of wages. A fighting strategy on the national campaign was also carried at ADC which further updates the PCS demands to £18ph.

Delegates have made it clear that low pay- which has left AA/AO grades on minimum wage for the third year in a row, with other grades sliding increasingly closer – must be seriously combatted.

Delegates also voted for to support Emergency Motion 3 on hybrid working, which laid out a timeline for moving towards industrial action over the recent announcement that DWP members who currently work hybrid will be required to attend the office at least 60% of the time from September, and criticised the GEC for engaging in embargoed talks which achieved little for members but allowed management to suggest PCS accepted the change. The instructions of the motion are below.

Conference instructs the GEC:

● To write to the Secretary of State and Permanent Secretary demanding the rescinding of the 60% office attendance mandate. 

● Encourage all staff to raise a concern about the current office attendance mandate, providing a template concern that members can submit to their work line manager and providing guidance for manager members on how they should handle concerns in a way that supports the campaign.

● To provide a brief to branches to assist with members’ meetings by no later than 2nd June, in order for branches to hold members’ meetings throughout June, prior to peak school vacation and annual leave periods and provide feedback to the GEC.

● To assess the feedback from members’ meetings at a GEC meeting no later than July and set out a clear plan for building a campaign to reverse these attacks, including action short of strike and up to and including an all-out strike action, to a meeting of DWP Branch Secretaries, Chairs and Organisers by no later than 10 August 2025.

● Prepare to ballot members on strike action and action short of a strike – an example of which may be to instruct members to go into an office on the same day to delicately exceed the office capacity. The timeline for a ballot will need to take account of any national ballot (eg the National Campaign on pay, pensions and jobs) to ensure we deliver the turnout in this ballot.

The GEC is instructed to produce a Members Briefing by no later than 31 August 2025 to set out the campaign strategy and to provide a report on the campaign to branches by 31 December 2025.

Motion A4, which attempted to “relaunch” ED was opposed by conference. The passing of this motion would have watered down existing DWP Group policy from 2022, with still no serious attempt to negotiate improvements to the Collective Agreement. This means PCS in DWP is still committed to the ending of compulsory Saturday working, the reduction of operating hours to 5pm, the reduction of the working week to 35 hours and to secure funding to end the two-tier ED/non-ED pay system.

PCS Broad Left Network members will keep fighting for our DWP Group to adopt a fighting programme which is essential to stand up to the key attacks facing our membership.

Motion A1:

This conference notes nothing was done to build on the anger over pay shown in the members meetings organised on the pay offer at the end of 2024.

This conference recognises: −

• The key role our group should be playing in the PCS national campaign on pay given our size and low pay rates even further behind other groups and a significant proportion of DWP staff in the lower grades with huge numbers facing going back onto the minimum wage in April 25 or sliding closer to the minimum wage.
• The vast bulk of DWP staff are in the grades AA−EO with latest published figures showing

– AAs & AOs FTE 21457.34

            EOs FTE 43928.47 

   Total DWP FTE 83,002

• Scandalously three quarters of DWP staff, all those in AA−EO grades would directly benefit from the PCS demand for starting pay of £15ph with additional money to sustain London weighting above this.
• A serious campaign on pay would help build the strength of the union and rebuild confidence in the Group that we can win on pay and all the other issues our members are facing and give a lead to branches which have been demoralised with the lack of support.
• The government floating pitiful 2.8% pay rises in 2025 for public sector workers.

This conference instructs the GEC to: −

• Recognise the necessity of building towards a successful strike ballot as an integral part of the pay campaign as it is clear the new Government will not deliver the pay rise that is needed without being forced.
• Work closely with branches and regions/nations to coordinate campaigning to meaningful national pay bargaining and sliding scale wage structure that would stop our wages falling below cost of living rises and keep our members’ pay above the minimum wage. As well as pay restoration to address the years our members’ pay has been driven down.
• Mobilise pressure on DWP senior management that we are not prepared to accept pathetic attempts to dress up the mandatory minimum wage rises and voucher schemes as something they are doing to address low pay and that they must act decisively to get the full funding to address the huge pay issues in the DWP.
• Recognise we need to unify all our membership to fight together for all members to have a pay rise, pay restoration and genuine pay progression to get the rate for job and involve our PMA members in drafting specific campaign material for our higher-grade members.
• Oppose any attempts by management to sacrifice jobs for pay
• Work with the national union and coordinate support to ensure that DWP members are fully involved in the national campaign but in the absence of a national strike ballot that our group popularise PCS demands amongst DWP members about the need to stand up and fight for 10% pay rise, £15ph starting pay, mobilises to ballot our members on pay.

PCS Conference took place last week and despite the usual chicanery, delegates across PCS declared their determination to fight against cuts to pay, cuts to jobs, closures of offices and restrictions to flexible and hybrid working.

However, there was a stormy start to ADC on the first afternoon. 25 emergency motions on trans rights were removed from the agenda following spurious legal advice on the back of the Supreme Court ruling. This was on top of General Secretary Fran Heathcote and President Martin Cavanagh taking it upon themselves to issue an offensive and inflammatory “statement” to delegates about the use of toilet facilities and a premature, biased interpretation of what the law requires.

These motions if carried, would have reaffirmed PCS continued support for trans rights, supported members, and given a clear response of opposition to the Supreme Court ruling unifying our members against the attacks. And a further decision was made very late before the ADC opened to also exclude motion A57 which had already been published in the conference agenda. 

Again and again, conference refused to adopt standing orders attempting to get the motions back on the agenda. President Martin Cavanagh continued to use “legal advice” to block the repeated majority votes by conference to disregard this spurious advice and put the motion back onto the agenda. After over two hours of votes, a majority eventually agreed to adopt standing orders via a card vote.

Delegates later voted against one of the few emergency motions on trans rights that had survived the censorship, A385. If carried, it would have given licence to the new NEC to make decisions on what it would issue based on “legal advice”. Fiona Brittle, Broad Left Network NEC member gave a powerful speech on behalf of the NEC on why the Left Unity leadership of our union could not be trusted to implement the motion to support members given their deliberate exclusion of the better worded motions on trans and non-binary rights at ADC. Even the mover in her right of reply acknowledged there was no trust in the leadership and understood why delegates were going to oppose.

The cynical nature of the exclusion of motions, justified by President Martin Cavanagh as “protecting the union”, has since been exposed by other unions, including the National Education Union and University and College Union, adopting policy that does not shy away from criticising and demanding the overturn of the EHRC interim guidance that promotes policing toilet use by employers.

License to fight Labour cuts: A383 passed

Despite efforts by the general secretary, Fran Heathcote, to talk down a “shopping basket of demands”, referencing motion A315 that passed the previous year, Conference doggedly passed motion A383. This laid out most clearly the attacks on civil servants, and the consequences for devolved government workers and our privatised members working on facilities management contracts.

Of central importance, the motion set a deadline of mid-September to start a ballot for strike action if the lack of progress in talks continues. Westminster departments face 15% cuts, and these have already begun to land. In the Cabinet Office, 1,200 job cuts have been announced. The government has announced renewal of efforts to cut London jobs by 12,000. A “review” of arm’s length bodies means cuts are also likely there.

A campaign on these issues is vital. Broad Left Network members on the union’s National Executive Committee (NEC), together with left allies, have been making this point for a year. Flattered by personal discussions with ministers, the general secretary has done nothing to prepare the union for a fight, despite motions calling for this being carried at the NEC in July 2024 and January 2025.

We do not believe the attitude of Heathcote or Cavanagh will change now that they once again have won a majority on the union’s NEC, in this year’s elections in May. Their inability to lead a fight with the government was proven in the 2022/23 strike wave; they waited for five weeks before calling any action, they called only three days of national action and, at the first offer, in June 2023, pulled the plug on the campaign.

Collusion with Labour?

Barely an hour after PCS Conference closed on Thursday 22 May, the government announced the civil service pay remit. This is guidance which sets out the pay parameters and covers all UK government departments and agencies. It provides a percentage figure by which each area can increase their total pay bill – meaning that, as a rule of thumb, pay rises mirror this figure. The figure set for 2025/26 is 3.25%, with leeway up to 3.75% for the low paid.

The timing of the announcement is suspect – and of course Cavanagh and Heathcote, on behalf of the ruling Left Unity faction, claimed 3.25% as a success, even though it falls short of the 4.1% 12-month rolling average for inflation, and does not represent additional funds for government departments that are already facing punitive cuts of 15%. Pay rises must be found within existing budgets.

All that can be said for certain is this. This announcement was not made without discussion with representatives from the trade unions. Yet the union’s NEC was not informed of any such discussions, and nor was PCS Conference. Conference instead heard re-heated Labour propaganda, that “headcount reduction targets have been abandoned”, from the general secretary. This is a concerning pattern.

Decisive left victory in Conference block vote

Elections to the union’s NEC are by individual ballot and were held before Conference convened. Radically reduced turnout saw all vote counts fall, but the opposite happened at the block vote elections. Not only did the left vote increase, this election returned all left candidate and of particular significance is winning two seats on the union’s National Standing Orders Committee (NSOC). This Committee is responsible for the unions’ conference agenda i.e. which motions will be discussed. Winning two seats is a vital step in re-opening PCS to democratic debate.

For years, a majority of NSOC have been supporters of the president and general secretary meaning that motions setting out an alternative are either not placed on the agenda or buried at the end of sections.

Against years of practice, motions submitted to conference by the NEC were not reached because of this bias. The difference this year is the president, and general secretary did not have a majority on the NEC and therefore motions were agreed that they did not support. To have discussed these, would have given an opportunity to set out an alternative by the left majority on the NEC, to the disadvantage of the president and general secretary.

More centrally to the democracy of Conference, NSOC rushed through the abolition of the guillotine section this year on the Wednesday morning. Attempts to “reference back”, i.e. to discuss a disagreement with this move, by DfE Y&H branch, were brushed off by Cavanagh, sitting as chair of conference.

The guillotine section allows motions missed due to time, to be put back on the agenda and discussed – this limits the scope for the president to play games by calling dozens of delegates in on uncontentious motions, to talk out anything they do not want heard.

It also limits the power of NSOC to put low down the agenda anything their pals the president and general secretary do not like, as it can still get into the guillotine section. This has happened a few times in the last few years, resulting in defeats of and embarrassment for the ruling Left Unity faction.

Tactics to bury motions were in full evidence this year, particularly motion A226, on giving branches means to contact their own members directly. First it was D-marked (can be cleared by correspondence), then X-marked (out of order) and finally A-marked (for debate) but buried below a dozen other motions in the hope it would not be reached. Thankfully, Conference delegates overturned this on Tuesday afternoon.

For more than a decade, (up to 2019 and the split in the left engineered by Mark Serwotka, Fran Heathcote and Martin Cavanagh), bureaucratic, obfuscatory techniques like this were not employed, and Conference developed a confidence in the National Standing Orders Committee to make sure key issues were debated at the top of every section, regardless of who they embarrassed.

Conference is gradually waking up to the fact that they can take nothing on trust and that, if delegates are not to lose control of the direction of the union, they will have to keep watchful control of Conference agenda papers and over everything else besides.

Build a fighting, democratic PCS to defeat austerity

The last year has been disorientating for activists across PCS. A left NEC was elected in May 2024 – and quickly found that, without the post of president or two-thirds of the seats (we won 19 out of 35), their majority could be and was ignored by the president and general secretary. Indeed, the institutions of the union – including branch briefings – were put to factional use by the president and general secretary to try and discredit the NEC.

Expecting a serious campaign, PCS activists were left holding on for another year while the union’s leadership argued amongst themselves. Anger from members over the levy was another complicating factor, as demonstrated by the censure of the NEC through motion A85. In absence of a campaign that justified collecting the levy, low paid members understandably wondered why they were bothering to pay it.

None of this changes the struggles that we will face over the next year. Cuts are coming. We must build a campaign across the whole union defeat these – if we don’t, cuts will continue. Inextricably linked to this is the battle to ensure PCS is accountable to its members and to their elected representatives at all levels – the battle for a fighting, democratic PCS. To all PCS reps and members fighting the cuts and fighting for equality at work and in the community, we urge you to join the PCS Broad Left Network and join with us to help rebuild the fighting strength of our union to stop the attacks.