Following the Emergency NEC which met on the 29th of May -Report here – further meetings took place during June and most recently on the 23/24th July. The next NEC begins on the 2nd of September. Significantly this year, the National President has stopped ruling BLN motions out of order, even though they are directly contradicting papers from the GS – could this be because they now have a majority?
This report sets out the key discussions which took place. If you want more detail, then please get in touch with any BLN comrades on the NEC.
National Campaign
Three months of sleepwalking into Starmer’s cuts
Reps and members would be forgiven for wondering what is happening with the union’s national campaign. Annual Delegate Conference, meeting in May, determined that the union needed to get serious to fight against the cuts raining down from Starmer and Reeves’ Labour government.
Since Conference concluded at midday on 23 May, the Labour government has announced a below-inflation pay rise for hundreds of thousands of civil servants, with a pay remit of 3.25%. Further job cuts – including 25% job cuts at the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office – have also been announced.
The outcome of Labour’s Spending Review, SR25, has also been announced. This covers government spending plans up to 2030. Departments are expected to find 15% savings in their “administrative budgets”; this is where most of the staffing budget for each department sits, so it inevitably means swingeing job cuts.
Faced with this onslaught, one would expect the leaders of the largest civil service union to be ready with a plan, including preparation for an urgent national strike ballot. With a bit of fight, a Labour government whose support in the last election was a mile wide and an inch deep could be decisively fended off and concessions won. Look at the U turns they’ve had to do on PIP, when Disabled People Against Cuts stood against them – our union could and must do the same.
PCS Leadership complacency since May
Instead of immediately engaging with reps, putting the employer of notice of a pending strike ballot and preparing organising materials asked for by the former NEC majority back in January 2025, general secretary Fran Heathcote and president Martin Cavanagh seem far too enamoured of talks with the senior leaders in the civil service, with lip service only to the idea of a much-needed strike ballot and campaign.
In a paper to the July NEC, the general secretary describes how “discussions with the Cabinet Office should give us some cause for optimism” on the questions of pay and reward. Worse, the general secretary goes on to suggest that pay restoration “be funded through finding efficiencies within the civil service”, i.e. job cuts. In the context of a government that is not hiding its preparations for attacks on the civil service over its term of office, there is no reason for optimism.
The general secretary seems lost in a fantasy by imagining that Labour Ministers are sympathetic to a return to national pay bargaining and were blocked from making progress during the Blair years only by the Permanent Secretaries (the most senior civil servants in each area). She seems to hope that now there’s a new mood at the top of the civil service and is more interested in discussing possible future changes than any movement for members right now. This kind of delusion is dangerous and disarms the union, encouraging members to put their faith in enlightened managers instead of their own power.
In fact, no progress on a return to national pay bargaining was made from 1997-2010 for a lot of reasons – but one was that Labour’s leadership bought fully into the idea of cutting public services. Starmer and Reeves still do. The language has changed slightly since the Cameron and May governments – “we’ve all got to tighten our belts; there’s no magic money tree” etc – but the basic approach to the public sector is the same. Cuts are taken to mean efficiency, and efficiency is taken to mean cuts – it’s always workers expected to pay the price by nobly accepting cuts to living standards and public services, never the profits of big business and billionaires.
Heathcote and Cavanagh appear overawed by the willingness of the Cabinet Office to meet with and speak to them, when previously the senior leaders of the civil service barely bothered even with this. However empty talks are not worth much more than no talks at all and are in fact serving as a smokescreen for no action.
This is not the first time they’ve been a little too credulous. In July 2023, Heathcote – then national president, with Cavanagh her deputy – presided over the dismantling of our national strike campaign based on a £1,500 one-off payment to members and a promise of talks on pay. They balloted members to accept the £1,500 based on these offered talks – which predictably went nowhere.
But we have also been here before with the current Labour government, during the Facilities Management dispute across a dozen sites in London and East Kilbride from late 2024 into mid-2025.
Only after months of determined strike action by privatised facilities workers in government offices did Labour’s Georgia Gould step in. Action was paused to allow for talks, but progress quickly stalled, and a victory only finally came after further ballots and action even after the intervention by Gould and the Cabinet Office. The lesson here should be clear; Labour will only step up if forced.
All this underlines that there is no room for complacency or credulity, which seems to be about all that is on offer from the Left Unity-led PCS NEC.
Will there actually be a national campaign? July NEC’s decisions
So, several months on from Conference, what has been decided?
The NEC agreed to demand an agreement on pay, jobs and flexible working across the civil service, which really is just a restatement of Conference policy with fewer added extras.
A “ballot-ready strategy” has now been endorsed, although this seems to be heavy on arranging administrative tasks such as phone banking, and light on things reps actually need for worker-to-worker conversations, like well-crafted leaflets putting the union’s case that a fight can win or support with members meetings. Delivering a successful ballot requires a campaign to reassure members that their efforts won’t be wasted this time, not just endless cold calls. Furthermore, there’s no reason any of this couldn’t have been agreed in May – why the delay?
Heathcote recommended branch members’ meetings to run mid-August to mid-September – why not immediately following the July NEC at least, but more importantly why not from the end of May? Could it be that the average LU NEC member wouldn’t have a clue what to say unless they had Paul O’Connor writing them a speakers’ brief? Or that the later they start, the less likely they are to deliver a successful ballot turnout and force Heathcote et al to have a fight on pay at all.
National PCS-run activist meetings have been lacklustre affairs so far, with no serious attempt to set out a strategy of build a serious campaign capable of winning.
Levy refund – weakening of Left Unity’s apolitical election promise
A levy refund plan has been agreed by the NEC majority, to repay the six months of levy payments which members paid from September 2024 to February 2025.
Meanwhile the creation of a “sustainable fighting fund” has been punted to the National Disputes Committee and a future consultation with branches, to conclude by the end of November 2025 – two months after the statutory ballot on pay members demanded at ADC 2025 is supposed to kick off. Presumably LU needs the extra time to work out how they can phrase asking members for money to support strikes, at the same time as paying some back because their entire election campaign was based on repaying money which should be used to support strikes and to fight the employer.
And that is pretty much it. That’s the whole plan. If that leaves you underwhelmed, and feeling like the heart of the NEC isn’t really in the idea of a strike ballot in September 2025, then you wouldn’t be alone.
Broad Left Network supporters, and allies in the wider left coalition for change – 7 out of 35 NEC members this year – opposed the above as not remotely going far enough or fast enough, and proposed a motion here that would have set PCS immediately on a “war-footing”, with preparations to match the urgency of such a posture – and the urgency of our position vis a vis a cuts-making Labour government. This motion complimented and continued the similar, highly detailed motion we submitted to the May NEC (which can be found here). Both were rejected by the NEC majority in favour of Heathcote’s delays and pleasantries.
The current situation – delegated pay, and where do we go now
Delegated pay bargaining, which negotiators were quickly instructed to enter by Heathcote immediately after the Civil Service Pay Remit was published in May, is at different stages in different areas. Major employers such as DWP, HMRC and MOJ have now concluded talks. Other areas remain outstanding with some submitting business cases for more money – but nowhere is making sufficient progress for most members.
If we’re not to simply waste all this work – negotiating on behalf of members, keeping them informed during talks, holding consultation meetings to vote on rejection of the pay award, building up pressure on the employer by mobilising members – then we need a national campaign now. That is not the course set by the current NEC.
If the NEC majority and PCS leadership remain this complacent, BLN supporters across PCS will have to come together to discuss what to do on pay in each area. We cannot rule out the need to submit employer-specific trade disputes and to build a campaign amongst a coalition of PCS branches and groups prepared to override the inaction of the National Executive Committee.
If you aren’t prepared to wait indefinitely, while the NEC tries to bury a serious national campaign in mud and confusion, join the PCS Broad Left Network and work with us to build a fighting, democratic PCS and the campaign members deserve.
Other issues to note from July NEC
Current Disputes:
Updates were given including:
- Sacked Activists at HMRC Benton Park View
- MyCSP striking for union recognition
- Ofgem
- Land Registry
Organising and Education update: Membership 187, 297 as of 25/8/2025.
Political Fund Ballot: timetable agreed, and ballot will run from 6th October. (Separately the BLN will produce material explaining why a yes vote is required and linking this in with broader political and industrial developments).
TUC Congress motions and NEC delegates agreed
The following affiliations were agreed:
Alternative to Asylum and C4C Affiliation
Strike Map
NHS
4-day week movement
Devolved Nations update which included Scotland and Wales but not NI. This provided detail on workplans for the next period. Scottish Government pay campaign was discussed, a fuller article on the BLN position can be found here.
English Devolution: a paper was agreed, despite BLN comrades raising reservations to the direction of travel, without a clear analysis on proposals across the piece.
FM Dispute: this has now been settled with members voting to accept the final offer. BLN raised reservations about the way in which this dispute had been handled whilst acknowledging the magnificent work from local reps, and particularly the strikers.
FM Workers Democracy: a paper was carried setting up an Association for FM members. BLN NEC members argued the paper should be “kept on the table” as it was clear members, reps, branches and groups had not been consulted. BLN are concerned this could be used to avoid current democratic lay structures which have been critical of the union’s handling of the FM dispute.
Supreme Court Trans Ruling presentation: – Thompsons Guest Speaker and barrister presented on the ruling, in a session which was announced just beforehand to be covered by legal privilege and therefore not for sharing to any member, branch or group despite keen interest. BLN NEC members were left unimpressed by the presentation, and without any sense that the BLN approach (shared by PCS Proud and indeed the vast majority of the union) of condemning the unjust ruling and fighting to defend Trans, intersex and non-binary (Trans+) workers is illegal, or should change whatsoever.. BLN moved that their motion on Trans+ liberation (which can be found here) should finally be taken after being pushed to the next meeting by the Cavanagh in his capacity as Chair in May and again in June. Cavanagh and the NEC majority opposed this, and it was once again pushed to September, where Heathcote is expected to bring a paper on what in her view PCS needs to do in light of the ruling.
Finally, several Rule Ten complaints were heard (See rule 10 here). This is the rule that deals with very serious complaints and are subject to oversight from the NEC. The detail is understandably confidential and the BLN respects and understands this. However, we raised – yet again – several points regarding errors in the process, the lack of detail given to the NEC and therefore the lack of meaningful oversight. This includes refusal to show the NEC the actual complaint to decide whether it should use its power clearly stated under Rule 10 to decide whether to commission an investigation. Instead, Heathcote reads out her own summary of the complaint and informs the NEC “for noting” rather than decision that she has already instructed an FTO to investigate. These points have all been consistently ignored by Heathcote, Cavanagh and NEC majority but we will keep pushing.
In conclusion there continued to be a lot of business not reached including new constitutions for groups, motions from the BLN on trans rights and political representation. Importantly our motions setting out an approach in the context of political developments around Jeremy Corbyn was not reached, here nor our motion on trans rights, referenced above.
In solidarity
Fiona Brittle
Marion Lloyd
Rob Ritchie
Bobby Young
PCS Broad Left Network 