Examination of Witnesses (Questions 1-61)
Alan Brown. Paul McGoay. Anne-Louise McKeon-Williams.
Councillor Matthew Evans
Q1 Chair: Good
morning. Thank you very much indeed for coming here this morning.
My name is David Davies. I am Chairman of the Welsh Affairs Select
Committee. I know one of the panel extremely well, but for the
record perhaps you could introduce yourselves.
Alan Brown: My
name is Alan Brown. I am the Group Secretary of the Identity
and Passport Service Group of PCS—the Public and Commercial
Services Union.
Anne-Louise McKeon-Williams:
I am Anne-Louise McKeon-Williams. I am the Branch Secretary for
the Newport office.
Paul McGoay: I
am Paul McGoay. I am the Group President of PCS, IPS.
Councillor Matthew Evans:
My name is Matthew Evans. I am the Leader of Newport City Council.
Chair: Thank you and welcome.
I will begin the questioning straight away with Jessica Morden.
Q2 Jessica Morden:
Perhaps I should start off by saying that I am the constituency
MP for Newport so I should declare an interest. Could we just
start with how the decision about the proposed closure of the
Newport office was made? This is to all of you—was it expected
or did it come as a bolt out of the blue?
Alan Brown: It
is something that management and IPS had been speaking to us around
the so-called "need for cuts", which the PCS don't accept.
We think that the IPS is an organisation which brings money into
the Government coffers. If you take out the £57 million that
was spent on consultants in the year before last, it actually
makes money for the Government, so we do not accept that there
was a need for the cuts or for office closures. Management had
been talking to us about the closure of the regional office and
the majority of the interview office network offices and they
were due to do that on 14 October, I think the date was. However,
there had been some sort of leak which management initially seemed
to imply that PCS were responsible for, but have since accepted
that we were not. For the people of Newport and the members in
Newport, it was a bolt out of the blue. It came on Friday 8 October
and we had members who effectively were being told that their
jobs were going and were left in tears in effect with the announcement
that was made on that day.
Q3 Jessica Morden:
Who delivered that news to you and how do you feel about how the
announcement was handled?
Alan Brown: We
had been contacted by the BBC on the morning of the 8th. They
said that they had two sources from the Home Office who had confirmed
that there was going to be the announcement of the closure of
the Newport office and they asked if we wanted to comment. We
were not in a position to comment on any of that. I understand
that management locally, in fact the Chief Executive, Sarah Rapson,
went down on the Friday to the office in Newport and made an announcement
to staff then. She subsequently had a meeting with all members
of staff on the Monday at which ourselves—PCS—were
present; I and Anne-Louise, as part of the branch leadership,
and Paul, as the Group President, were present. To be perfectly
honest, she was given a very hard time from members there because
of the effect it would have on them as individuals, on the community
and on the service generally for not just south Wales but also
for south-west England as well. That is how the announcement was
made.
Q4 Jessica Morden:
Do you think it is quite extraordinary in a way that it is a civil
servant who is delivering the bad news about this size of job
cuts, rather than a politician fronting up that announcement?
Alan Brown: To
be honest, that is something that has been quite extraordinary.
You would think that it is a political decision. Civil servants,
yes, they deliver news, but the decision is made not by civil
servants; it is made by Ministers. The fact that it seemed to
be a civil servant who was left to carry the can and to deliver
that news was quite extraordinary. In fact, for quite some time
afterwards, it seemed to be civil servants that were left to defend
the decision, which we do not think is defensible in the first
place. In terms of quotes in the press, etc, it seemed to be civil
servants and the chief executive who were left to make that decision
and to defend that decision.
Q5 Jessica Morden:
Do you accept the IPS rationale for why the office should close
in terms of the ID cards going and operational improvements and,
I understand, in terms of the Newport office having the wrong
kind of floor and windows?
Alan Brown: That
was one of the most bizarre documents that we have seen, with
the wrong type of windows—leaky windows—and solid
floors, I think was what they said. As Matthew will probably
tell you, the council had been in discussions with the IPS about
providing alternative accommodation in Newport. But we certainly
do not accept the need for the office to close. In fact, we were
at a meeting yesterday as part of the 90-day consultation, where
in one meeting we were told by IPS management that there are 50
excess jobs at the moment across the whole of IPS as a result
of ID cards going and the second generation of biometric passports
being scrapped. What they are saying is 50 of those are going.
As a result of internet applications, they are now saying they
have now reviewed and renewed their figure for internet applications
because of a new computer system that is coming in. They are saying
that over the next few years they expect 45% of applications to
be made online via the internet. They have said that is going
to be responsible for the 300 excess jobs, which is the Newport
office. But we went into a second meeting yesterday afternoon
during which management then said that the internet and the new
system they are bringing in has been scaled back somewhat because
of parliamentary cuts, because of Government cuts, and, therefore,
there will be absolutely no savings as a result of applications
being made online. In fact, what they are actually doing is separating
the application from people having to provide their passports
etc, so it just doesn't make any sense.
Q6 Chair: Thank
you very much. It is very important evidence. Are you telling
us that you have been told there will be no savings as a result
of this?
Alan Brown: Yes.
Chair: Thank you for that.
I know this is very important, but perhaps, if I may just suggest,
we ought to try and be as quick as we can with the questions and
answers because there are quite a few.
Q7 Jessica Morden:
One final question then. Do Newport process any of the ID cards
work at all at an office, and would you think it is true to say
that there might be a history in the past of IPS making short-term
decisions that you then have to reverse?
Paul McGoay: Most
definitely. If you look at 1999 when we had the major passport
crisis, the cause of that crisis was that IPS, or UK Passport
Service as it was then, had been running down staffing not through
job cuts but through attrition. A new computer system was then
introduced, and as a result of the tight staffing that they had,
when the system went belly-up basically, they could not deal with
the backlogs that were created because they did not have enough
staff or capacity to do so. We had a similar thing around Glasgow
in 2008; they took postal production out of the Glasgow site,
with the loss of 150 jobs, albeit with no compulsion. They were
voluntary redundancies in the end. The rationale then, as now,
was, "Oh, we have to improve efficiency and so forth. We
have too much excess capacity in terms of staffing." Over
the last couple of years, they have had to put postal production
back into the Glasgow site, utilising the remaining staff there.
That has had a detrimental effect on the service because it has
meant that they have had to shut down the main counter in Glasgow
at least two days a week in the peak periods to bring the counter
staff back to examine the postal work. We were told at the time
in 2008 that Glasgow would never have postal work again. So they
have a history of short term, knee-jerk decisions.
Q8 Chair: Thank
you, Mr McGoay. Just out of interest, which civil servant was
it that told you there would be no savings, because I think we
might want to take that up with the Minister later?
Alan Brown: I will
just get my notes from yesterday. I will come back to that if
that's okay.[1]
Chair: Don't worry. In
the meantime, I will bring in Alun Cairns to ask questions.
Q9 Alun Cairns: Thank
you. Mr Brown, or any of your colleagues, I want to come back
to the announcement because that was Ms Morden's first question.
It was extremely important in terms of how the news became public
because it did not treat the staff with the respect that they
deserve in terms of the consultation. I know that you said that
you had a call from the BBC that morning about it. Some have suggested
that the unions were responsible for leaking it. Is that true
or not?
Alan Brown: Not
at all.
Paul McGoay: Not
at all. The BBC journalist we spoke to—it was Alan who spoke
to him—told us that the leak had actually come from somewhere
in the Home Office.
Alan Brown: He
said that it was two separate sources from the Home Office who
had given the information.
Q10 Guto Bebb:
As a north Wales Member, some of my constituents have asked me
why I am involved in an inquiry into the Newport Passport Office.
Could you confirm that currently all applications made in Wales,
from an address in Wales, are actually processed by the Newport
office?
Anne-Louise McKeon-Williams:
That is correct.
Q11 Guto Bebb:
That is correct. Therefore, the question then is: why would you
argue that Wales does actually need a separate passport office?
Paul McGoay: Why
would we argue?
Q12 Guto Bebb: Would
you argue that Wales does need a separate passport office?
Paul McGoay: We
would, yes, and other vital services are provided from that office
as well, like the Welsh language provision and so forth. So, yes,
we would.
Q13 Guto Bebb:
In the same way, would you confirm that the Newport office deals
with every single Welsh language applicant for a passport?
Paul McGoay: Currently,
yes.
Anne-Louise McKeon-Williams:
Currently, Welsh language, but some of the applicants, if they
want to process their application—say if they lived in Wrexham—quite
quickly, but an English application, then they could go to the
Liverpool Passport Office. The majority of Welsh applications
or all Welsh applications will be processed in Wales and if you
need Welsh language provision that will be done in Newport.
Q14 Guto Bebb:
What sort of discussions have you had in terms of the proposal
to close Newport, which would provide that service in the future?
Have you had any indication that those issues have been considered?
Paul McGoay: As
far as we can tell, no. They came back shortly after the announcement,
as you will be aware, and said that there would be a customer
service centre in Newport. That was announced a couple of days
after the first announcement, after a meeting between Sarah Rapson
and the Minister for Wales. As far as we can tell, that customer
service centre will only involve basically taking in applications.
It is likely that applications will be processed, once they are
taken in from that office, elsewhere. Recently, a manager went
into the Newport office and said to some staff there and people
on the trade union side that it would be very unlikely that there
would be the same-day premium service provided from that customer
service centre. I don't think IPS management have given any real
consideration to the impact of these plans on Wales. I think they
are engaged in a short-term cost-cutting exercise. That was clear
during some of the preliminary discussions we had when they were
looking at various offices and things like that, and they were
talking about Newport. We said, "Have you considered the
political implications of this, and the economic implications,
given the state of the economy in south Wales, in particular,
and the likely reaction of the Welsh Assembly and Welsh MPs?"
The response was as simple as this. It was, "That's a matter
for the Minister. Nothing to do with us." To answer your
question, we have not had many constructive discussions around
service provision in that regard because I think they are simply
bent on closing the office.
Q15 Guto Bebb:
Just to finally press you on that issue as well, in addition to
the fact that obviously there is the threat of closure to Newport,
is it also the case that the regional offices currently serving
people in Wrexham, people in Aberystwyth and so forth, are also
under threat?
Paul McGoay: You
mean the interview offices?
Guto Bebb: Yes.
Paul McGoay: Yes,
they are. They are due for closure.
Q16 Guto Bebb:
Due for closure. So, in other words, we will end up in a situation
where there will be no provision apart from the counter service
in Newport?
Anne-Louise McKeon-Williams:
That is correct.
Q17 Guto Bebb:
North Wales will end up going back to Liverpool, I suspect?
Paul McGoay: That
is right.
Anne-Louise McKeon-Williams:
That is correct.
Chair: Can I bring Councillor
Evans in?
Councillor Matthew Evans:
Thank you very much, Chairman. From a political perspective, with
regard to the announcement itself, I was in the office on the
Friday afternoon and we had a tip-off, sadly, from the local paper,
the South Wales Argus, stating that this announcement would
be made. It came completely out the blue from our perspective.
We found it even more irrational, I suppose, due to the fact that
being a member of the Newport Limited board we have had long and
detailed discussions with them about finding them new premises,
so it was a complete shock. I will say that we have cross-party
support from every other leader in south-east Wales whether it
is Plaid, Lib Dem, Conservative or Labour. The issue is more about
the effect it will have on Wales as a country. You mentioned about
the Welsh language. Clearly, in Newport it is not a Welsh-speaking
area but there are a lot of passions about the language. People
currently, as I understand it, who use Aberystwyth and Swansea,
where there is a predominantly large area of Welsh speakers, at
the moment would have the opportunity to go to Newport, and you
have the back office staff and functions who might be able to
assist. This is another area where, should all the back office
functions go, they will have a far smaller pool. You have also
got the security implications as well, which we need to highlight
and stress. The Passport Office, I believe, has been open since
1967 and there is a wealth of experience there in dealing with
fraud investigations. Now, you can't just put people on a training
course for the experience they have gained. Clearly, at the moment
you have the back office staff who can help and assist, and that
service is going to be lost to Wales as well.
Paul McGoay: Can
I just make one very quick point about Welsh language? I do have
a document that we received yesterday which I can send to the
Committee. It is the equality impact assessment. There is a section
on cultural impact and the legal requirement to provide a Welsh
language service. The mitigation they have set against that openly
says we can consider the option to completely remove the service
of providing Welsh language applications. That is in there as
a mitigation.
Chair: We are going to
come back to that in a moment. A very quick question from Mr Bebb
and then Mr Brown is going to let us have that name.
Q18 Guto Bebb:
Just to have it on the record, the Welsh Language Board have presented
us with evidence which states that there is no Welsh language
capacity whatsoever in Liverpool. Is that your understanding?
Paul McGoay: That
is my understanding.
Anne-Louise McKeon-Williams:
That is correct.
Alan Brown: The
name of the civil servant you were asking for was Louise Horton.
Q19 Chair: She
has said that there would be no savings as a result of this?
Alan Brown: Yes,
as a result of internet use.
Q20 Geraint Davies:
Councillor Evans, following the previous question, would you accept
in essence this decision inherently discriminates against Wales?
It seems the position of Wales is not just as a second-class nation,
but as a nation that if you want to leave it you have to go into
England to get out. It is as if we are a sort of back cupboard
of England. Is that the way you feel?
Councillor Matthew Evans:
What I will say is that I have a slightly different view from
my colleagues over here on the one issue about understanding and
accepting cuts. We reckon that if there had been, to be honest,
a 10% cut across the board, then I wouldn't be here today. Clearly,
the issue has to be—bearing in mind that Newport has been
so successful in attracting jobs from London—that we are
using the economic argument, the excellent location of the city,
to say we need and should have more jobs coming into Wales, bearing
in mind that Newport has its fair share of deprived areas. It
does look from the business case, as I understand it from the
figures, that potentially 300 jobs needed to go by 2012, and remarkably
Newport has 300 jobs. That does arouse suspicions.
Q21 Geraint Davies:
Mr Brown has already made the point that there does not seem to
be a clear cost case. You have made the point now that the finger
has been pointed at Newport. I guess I am making the point that
Wales is a nation. There is a Welsh language issue as well. We
would expect, in some sense, special treatment rather than discriminatory
treatment. Would you accept that, given that Wales is very rural,
if you look at the actual cost to the consumer as opposed to the
producer of people having to travel to get their passports, if
you take out Newport, there would be an enormous on-cost to the
people of Wales, who on average have less money and are being
harder hit in this recession?
Councillor Matthew Evans:
Yes, absolutely. That is whether people are coming from Birmingham,
the south-west of England or Wales. Yes, the customer service
will undoubtedly suffer.
Q22 Geraint Davies:
If the decision was based on the customer as opposed to just costs,
it would point away from doing Newport, and as Mr Brown has said,
if it was done on cost, it would probably, again, not discriminate
against Newport. If it was on the basis of nationhood, we should
not hit Newport. Presumably, you will be strongly continuing to
campaign that we keep the service for the people in Wales in Newport?
Councillor Matthew Evans:
We certainly will be, yes.
Q23 Owen Smith:
Councillor Evans, you are obviously a Conservative leader of the
council. How do you feel about the fact this is being done by a Conservative-Liberal
Government here in Westminster and the fact that they did not
consult with you at all?
Councillor Matthew Evans:
We are a Conservative and Lib Dem administration. We have been
a Conservative and Lib Dem administration for the past two and
a half years. Naturally, I was disappointed that there had not
been any consultation. Clearly, making a non-political point,
I would have hoped that any leader of any council does not want
to hear this news from a local paper, and I do not want to go
into the ins and outs of how the information came to public knowledge.
But one would have hoped we would have had the information provided
beforehand so that at least we would have the opportunity to be
involved and engaged at an earlier stage. The last discussions
we had were about expanding the service rather than removing the
service altogether.
Q24 Owen Smith:
I see from your evidence that you conducted an analysis in the
council and with consultants of how many jobs will actually be
lost as the wider impact of this. Could you tell us about that?
Councillor Matthew Evans:
What we have to bear in mind from a Newport perspective is that
it is not just the back office function and jobs which are being
lost. There are a number of jobs in the private sector which will
also disappear. It is the effect on the local trade and on the
city itself. Newport has been going through some very difficult
times. We have had recent announcements, for instance, that Marks
& Spencer are thinking of moving out of the city, and Next
and Monsoon. This just adds to the problem of perception we have
at the moment. Believe it or not, the Passport Office is the second
largest employer in the city centre. We have very few jobs in
the city centre and clearly many other local traders rely on the
business. Our business case would be that we have excellent communications;
we are on the M4 corridor, with easy access to London and south
Wales. These city centre jobs we can ill-afford to lose at the
moment.
Q25 Owen Smith:
How many in total do you think we will lose? What is the multiplier?
I am sure I have read in your evidence that it is nearer 500 than
300.
Councillor Matthew Evans:
I was going to say it is nearer 500 than 250. These figures have
been done independently of the council. Clearly, one would hope
that the question about the economic impact assessment, which
I understand has not been done at the moment by the Passport Agency,
needs to be done.
Q26 Jonathan Edwards:
In terms of the timing of the announcement, of course we had the
Ryder Cup going on at the same time, which was more than just
an event: it was a huge rebranding exercise for the city and south-east
Wales. How disappointed were you with the exact timing?
Councillor Matthew Evans:
It has been a roller-coaster of a ride because the Ryder Cup was
a fantastic success not just for Newport but for Wales on the
world stage and the positive publicity we got out of that was
immeasurable in some respects. Then the following week to come
down to announcements from the Passport Office and then from Marks
& Spencer, it has been a very difficult time, particularly
as we are in the process of hoping to redevelop the city centre.
It has clearly come as a bitter blow.
Q27 Stuart Andrew:
I wonder if you could provide us with specific evidence as to
the deterioration in service that you expect the people of south
Wales and south-west England to have as a result of this proposal.
Alan Brown: At
the moment we have a situation where 700 applications are made
over the counter on a weekly basis at Newport. We have also been
told by another member of management—in fact the members
in Wales, in Newport, were told by a member of management—that,
as a result of the changes and the reduction in the service, the
premium service, which is the same-day service, will go as a result
of this. Our fear is that all processing work will go. If you
look at the numbers, they have said up to 45 jobs would be retained.
Management have since told us that that is actually 35. Forty-five
is the full-time equivalent. So it is 35 jobs that will be retained.
A customer service will be there and an interviewing facility,
but the processing work will then have to go elsewhere—to
England or wherever. There is clearly a knock-on effect there
as well just in terms of people physically getting their applications
and then getting them sent on to be processed elsewhere. There
is a real problem with that. There is also an issue around the
interview office network. I think as your colleague from north
Wales mentioned, there is only going to be the one office in Wales
which, as has been said, is going to be in Newport. They are talking
about peripatetic teams, mobile teams, that are going around using
shared facilities and carrying laptops to carry out interviews.
That is something we have real concern around and that will clearly
have an impact on the level of service that people can expect
elsewhere in the country as well. One of the things that we are
really concerned about is that the Government have said that there
are four different real issues that affect people. One of the
top four issues is identity fraud. They are talking about cutting
the number of interviews from 300,000 to 250,000 as part of the
customer service network—it used to be the interview office
network—when previously, they were talking about increasing
that to 700,000 to try and make sure that fraud was brought down
and to try and make sure that fraud levels were kept low. They
are talking about cutting that. If they are talking about identity
fraud as one of the top four issues for people in this country,
to then cut the number of offices, cut the number of jobs, processing
staff, then that is a real fear that we have got—that people's
identity is not going to be safe and their passport as a product
is going to be less safe as a result of these cuts.
Anne-Louise McKeon-Williams:
Can I just add to that? The main fraudulent applications are detected
by humans rather than by interview, through the processing of
applications. In Newport, we have got an outstanding service.
We have the best fraud department. We have trialled all the pilots.
We are a victim of our own success in many terms.
Q28 Chair: What
percentage of interviews result in further action or a case of
fraud being discovered—roughly? Do you want to come back
to us perhaps later on on that?
Paul McGoay: In
terms of the interview office network?
Q29 Chair: Yes.
You were talking about a figure of 300,000 people being interviewed
and it was going to go up to 700,000, but now it is going to go
to 150. What percentage would you say results in either further
action or a case of fraud?
Paul McGoay: What
I guess management have said in the past, and some politicians,
is that very few fraudulent applications have been detected through
the interview office network, but there are two things about that.
One of its primary purposes was not just simply fraud detection:
it was fraud deterrence. The interviews that take place at the
interview office network are quite invasive interviews in many
ways. The interviewer has quite a lot of information about the
person they are interviewing. The interviewer is trained to detect
fraud indicators and things like that in terms of behaviour, language
and so forth. So it is deterrence. One of the interesting things
in the documentation we have been given is that they will not
actually say how many interviews, for instance, have been cancelled
when someone has gone to request an interview, put in an application
and cancelled the interview with the interview office network.
Q30 Chair: How
many have cancelled and not reapplied?
Paul McGoay: We
do not know because the information in the document we have been
given around that has been redacted, so we cannot actually see
it.
Chair: We have the Minister
coming in a minute so somebody might want to ask that very question.
Q31 Stuart Andrew:
I think this brings up a very important point about the security
of the British passport really. Given that we are going to have
a smaller office, or that is being proposed, what you are basically
saying is that the security of the British passport really is
at stake with this?
Paul McGoay: Yes,
I think so.
Alan Brown: Just
to add to that, one of the things we have been saying is that
the local knowledge that people have in the communities in terms
of the questions that have been asked of people who are brought
in for interview is critical in this, and that knowledge is going
to be lost because it is going to be people coming in from elsewhere.
Q32 Jessica Morden:
The Minister would argue in all the questions that we ask him
that it's not true to say that Wales is losing its passport office.
But, quite clearly, if you are going down from 300 people to 45
or 35, but you are not sure quite yet what that office will do,
it would be impossible to do the four-hour service and presumably
the one-week service. I don't know. But, also, presumably, out
of that 35, you would have to have your Welsh language team as
well within that 35. Is it true to say that the service cannot
possibly be the same for people in Wales?
Paul McGoay: It
can't. I think that is absolutely right. On the Welsh language,
I would just come back to the equality impact assessment I mentioned
as well, because I think that's key. I do not have a copy with
me today, but we are happy to share this with the Committee because
it is not a restricted document or anything like that. It openly
says can we consider removing the option to complete forms in
the Welsh language as a mitigation against the fact that the people
who actually deal with the Welsh language applications are likely
to be made redundant?
Alan Brown: I think
that is absolutely right. Wales is losing its passport office—there
is some sort of counter facility—if this proposal goes through.
However, as part of the equality impact assessment Paul mentioned
earlier, what management have given us in terms of race is they
have said there is no impact adversely affecting specific races,
which I think speaks dividends about how IPS feels about the Welsh
as a race.
Q33 Jonathan Edwards:
In terms of the assessment you have done there in terms of the
Welsh language, do you think that the proposals are in danger
of breaching the Welsh Language Act?
Paul McGoay: The
paragraph I'm looking at says that legislation dictates that as
far as "practicable", the Welsh language is given equal
footing with English, but how is "practicable" defined?
They are thinking about getting round this—trying to get
round the legislation. That is what that section says to me. We
raised that yesterday and we said that is absolutely appalling.
Q34 Geraint Davies:
I have two quick questions. One is that you have already mentioned
that there is a reduction in the deterrence and detection of fraud
at risk here. Are you in essence saying that this may create a
chink in the armour, given that we face a significant terrorist
threat in Britain?
Paul McGoay: I
think that is entirely possible.
Q35 Geraint Davies:
Okay, that's fine. Secondly, on the customer service network—I
live in Swansea and I have used the four-hour service; it takes
me nearly two hours to get there and two hours to get back, four
hours, of course, eight hours to do this. Are you now saying that
if you take away this four-hour service, not only will we have
massive impacts on the retail footfall in Newport and the local
economy, but from the point of view of customers who I represent
in Swansea, they will no longer be able, within a day, like I
did for my mother, to get a passport? Again, it is a second-class
service or no service for the four-hour service or that same-day
service for people of Wales and south Wales.
Paul McGoay: That
follows directly from what that manager said. We certainly strongly
suspect that there will be no same-day service at the customer
service centre.
Q36 Geraint Davies:
This customer service as opposed to interview is a joke really,
isn't it, in terms of south Wales people? Thank you very much.
Paul McGoay: Yes.
Q37 Alun Cairns:
Can I follow up on a question that Mr Davies asked you before?
I think the phrase that he used was a "chink in the armour".
Is that not a damning indictment on your colleagues in the other
passport offices elsewhere, maybe union members as well, because
they cannot pick up on the fraud that you are suggesting?
Paul McGoay: I
don't think that is the case.
Alan Brown: I don't
think that is the case. I think they do pick up on fraud.
Q38 Alun Cairns:
I want to press you. I am going back to the chink in the armour
that was suggested. Are you saying that your colleagues elsewhere
are not up to the standard of those in Newport, or that they simply
will not be able to identify the fraud for whatever other reason?
Alan Brown: One
of the big issues for us is having a locally based service. At
the moment in the interview office network, where people have
been brought in to give more information about passport applications,
one of the big issues is around local knowledge. If somebody is
making a fraudulent application who has actually come into the
area and thinks this is an area where it is easier to get a passport,
they can do that. But the questioners and interviewers have been
trained in such a way that they can ask questions about the local
area, give that local knowledge and can identify if there is a
problem with the answers they are getting. However, as a result
of the change, that local knowledge is going to go because we
are going to have these mobile teams coming into areas who do
not have that local knowledge. Also, there is the fact that we
are actually reducing the number of interviews. Effectively, 300,000
interviews at the moment are first-time applicants. They are now
talking about 250,000 interviews that are taking place. They have
told us they are going to be targeted interviews, but management
have also told us that there are 5 million applications in the
UK for passports every year. If they are to do proper targeted
interviews, then they would have to have 5 million applications
a month to try and make sure that they are properly targeted.
We have a real concern about who is going to be targeted. There
is also an issue here about ethnicity and race, etc that we are
very concerned about. Who is going to be targeted? I might be
okay but others might not be. They have given us no indication
of how people are going to be targeted and that is a real concern
for us as well.
Chair: I appreciate you
feel strongly, but I am trying to get everyone in.
Q39 Owen Smith:
A question for Councillor Evans, if I may, and then two questions,
Chair. With regard to the 500 people who are going to lose their
jobs, what are the prospects in Newport right now that those people
will find alternative employment?
Councillor Matthew Evans:
Extremely limited. I think one of the economic arguments again
is that you are likely to outplace fairly highly skilled workers
with high levels of unemployment who will end up claiming benefits
and potentially, economically, that has not been considered. Newport
has been struggling over the past few years. We are still suffering
in a way. One of the reasons the Urban Regeneration Company was
set up was because we lost all the manufacturing jobs at Llanwern.
We are at a fairly critical time at the moment and every single
one of those jobs is desperately needed.
Q40 Owen Smith:
I think we can all see that this is a real blow to Wales. Can
you tell us what the engagement involvement with the Wales Office,
the Secretary of State for Wales, in particular, has been in engaging
in this issue?
Councillor Matthew Evans:
I was fortunate enough, to be fair to the Secretary of State for
Wales, in the conversations I have had with her; and I think it
is important to recognise that we are safeguarding 45 jobs on
one line, but clearly we are losing 80% of our work force. I am
grateful for the fact that we have managed to at least salvage
something. Clearly, we want to salvage far more than we have got
at the moment. The meeting with the Minister, I think, was constructive
and helpful. Nevertheless, I think we have a long way to go and
a tough battle to fight to ensure that these jobs remain in Newport.
Q41 Owen Smith:
Have you asked the Secretary of State for Wales to continue to
make the case for keeping the jobs in Newport, and what did she
indicate?
Councillor Matthew Evans:
Very much so. In fact, I went a step further than that. We have—here
is a bit of advertising—"Newport Open 24/7".
She has given an undertaking that every single Cabinet Member
will receive a copy of this brochure highlighting the benefits
of working and living in Newport. It is a very cost-effective
area for people to relocate to. This is an ideal opportunity for
us to save some money.
Chair: As an ex-Newport
boy myself, I can sympathise with that.
Q42 Guto Bebb:
Can I just take you back to the issue of the interviews and the
potential risk to passports by reducing the number of interviews?
You made an interesting point, and I just want to clarify it,
in terms of the fact that you believe the interview process in
itself is a deterrent. But there are no figures available for
the number of people who do not turn up for that interview. Is
that what you were saying?
Paul McGoay: The
figures are available but they have been redacted.
Q43 Guto Bebb:
They have not been made available for us to consider?
Paul McGoay: Not
yet. We have a document about the future of interviewing that
management have given us, but that key bit of information is redacted
in the document.
Q44 Chair: What
was the reason for redacting that, Mr McGoay?
Paul McGoay: They
say they spoke to security in the Passport Office Security Unit
and they think there might be a risk in making that information
public. But we have also pressed them to rescind that redaction.
Q45 Guto Bebb:
The point you are making in effect is that somebody trying to
make a fraudulent passport application, when invited for an interview,
might decide not to turn up?
Paul McGoay: Yes.
Q46 Guto Bebb:
So, in itself, it works as a deterrent. Will the closure of Newport
have an effect on the number of interviews taking place in Wales?
Paul McGoay: The
closure of the interview office network offices in Wales will.
The interviews that take place at the Newport office will be counter
interviews primarily for fast-track and premium. We were making
that point quite generally in terms of the interview office network,
obviously in Wales, which is also facing closure, and there are
closures of interview offices more widely across the UK as well,
about 20, probably with the loss of about 150 jobs threatened
at the moment.
Alan Brown: The
other important point to make is that they are actually downgrading
the grades of the interviewing officers as well, which speaks
volumes, I think, in terms of how they look at this.
Q47 Stuart Andrew:
If somebody is invited for interview and does not turn up, is
there a follow-up on that? Does the Newport Office do anything
to find out why that person did not turn up?
Anne-Louise McKeon-Williams:
I think perhaps you are confusing the interview office network,
which are small satellite offices. I will just explain.
Councillor Matthew Evans:
Satellite offices.
Q48 Stuart Andrew:
I understand that, but you said, if Newport closes, there are
fraudulent applications and the security of the passport might
not be as strong as it is at the moment. I am trying to understand:
if the person did not turn up for interview, is nothing done to
chase that up?
Paul McGoay: Things
like that would be dealt with by the fraud and investigation unit.
I imagine in some cases there are follow-ups, yes.
Q49 Stuart Andrew:
And that would still happen even with a smaller office?
Paul McGoay: Would
you say that again?
Q50 Stuart Andrew:
That would still happen with the proposed smaller offices?
Paul McGoay: Yes.
Q51 Susan Elan Jones:
I would like to ask the union representatives about the whole
consultation period, the statutory 90-day consultation period,
and to what extent you felt you were taken seriously in that?
Also, do you feel that the Identity and Passport Service were
receptive to your representations, or do you feel it was a bit
of a foregone conclusion? How do you feel that process panned
out?
Paul McGoay: Currently,
we are extremely dissatisfied with how the 90-day consultation
is going. We are four weeks in. Getting information out of IPS
management is like getting blood out of a stone. I will give you
an example. Yesterday, we were discussing a document the PCS had
seen as far back as August. It is called the Direction of Travel
document. We were shown that in August and they took it back off
us in the meeting. They said, "You can't actually keep this."
That document, we think, is relevant to some of the arguments
that are already in the ministerial submissions now.
Q52 Chair: What
was the title of that document?
Paul McGoay: It
was called the Direction of Travel document.
Anne-Louise McKeon-Williams:
It was issued on 26 August.
Paul McGoay: We
already had sight of that document at one stage. They took it
off us. When we asked for it yesterday, they said, "We have
got to be clear about whether we can give it to you or not."
Q53 Chair: I am
sure the members will be asking the Minister for it as well.
Paul McGoay: It
is a drip feed approach to information, and that is not the way
to conduct consultation. It makes PCS think, as we have said in
our submission to you and we have discussed a bit today, that
there is a thin basis being provided in terms of the submission
and the arguments we have seen for the decision that has been
made. We think either there is further documentation out there
that they are not sharing with us and they are being dishonest,
or the decision has been made on a thin basis. I can't see any
alternative.
Alan Brown: We
are also very concerned that the decision seems to be made and
the justification for it is now being made after it, and we are
getting documents. The document we got yesterday, which we were
told was around something like the Direction of Travel
document on which the Minister based his decision, was produced
at the end of last week. So they seem to be working backwards
from the decision.
Q54 Chair: Do
you believe this is a foregone conclusion, gentlemen?
Paul McGoay: No.
Chair: No. Good.
Q55 Jonathan Edwards:
I just wanted to explore some alternatives to the current proposals
because, obviously, an argument that is made in terms of relocating
jobs out of the south-east is that operational costs are far cheaper
in the traditional manufacturing areas. Is there an argument for
consolidation in Newport rather than closure? Secondly, if there
are to be job cuts and the Government are intent on pushing that
forward, wouldn't it be better to share the pain across the national
and regional offices across the UK rather than just targeting
Newport solely?
Alan Brown: I think
you could make that case. We don't accept the need for any job
cuts or any office closures. We think, in fact, given the issues
around identity fraud, given what the Government have said on
this, we should actually be investing more, rather than making
cuts. This is an organisation that makes money for the Government
and brings money in. Now we have got rid of the consultants—£57
million, which is almost the same as the spend on staff in the
passport service a couple of years ago—we think that there
should be investment in that. We think it should be a localised
service and we think there is definitely a case to keep the Newport
office open.
Q56 Geraint Davies:
Presumably, you are saying in terms of a local service serving
Wales and in terms of this issue of risk management of terrorism,
where there is less capacity in Newport, obviously, if you were
a rational terrorist, now that it is completely decimated in Newport,
you would probably think about applying in Newport instead? It
seems to me on a variety of fronts that we are going in the wrong
direction.
Alan Brown: You
could easily come to that conclusion, yes.
Q57 Owen Smith:
Are you aware of a document called Full Data Pack for the Newport
Office Closure that says on 31 August 2010 "the IPS Management
Board decided to recommend to Ministers that Newport should close"?
Paul McGoay: The
Full Data Pack for the Newport Closure?
Owen Smith: Yes.
Councillor Matthew Evans:
Can I just say, we have got that.
Q58 Owen Smith:
You have seen that?
Councillor Matthew Evans:
I was made aware of this, thankfully, in discussions with the
unions. I understand that the managing director received a copy
of it yesterday, having made a request sometime ago. Clearly,
to look through all the evidence in that submission with the time
given is not sufficient.
Q59 Owen Smith:
It clearly makes plain that the decision was made at the end of
August that Newport would be targeted for closure.
Paul McGoay: Yes.
Chair: That is something
we will be putting to the Minister in about 60 seconds. Can I
just ask Jessica Morden to ask the final questions?
Q60 Jessica Morden:
I want to take you back to one point about the economic impact
study. We have been talking a bit about the drip, drip effect
of all this information coming out. When do you expect to get
that and don't you feel that should have been right at the start
of the process rather than towards the end?
Paul McGoay: We
would like it as soon as possible, but the way things are going
at the moment it is very, very difficult to get information out
of them. I wish I could be more helpful.
Alan Brown: I think
the economic impact study, the equality impact study and a whole
range of other studies should have been done before there was
any decision taken. I think it is absolutely back to front the
way the whole process has gone.
Q61 Chair: Thank
you very much. Could you just finally confirm that it is 300 full-time
jobs that are being lost, or would be lost, if this decision goes
ahead?
Alan Brown: Yes,
but they are now saying that there will be 45 full-time equivalents
and 35 that will be retained as part of the new office.
Chair: Thank you very
much indeed for coming up and giving evidence to us today. You
are very welcome to stay behind for the next session.
1 See Q18-19 Back
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