The future of the Newport Passport Office - Welsh Affairs Committee Contents


Supplementary written evidence submitted by PCS

In this paper, we wish to submit some further evidence and to comment on some of the claims made by Identity & Passport Service (IPS) management at the Welsh Affairs Select Committee evidence session held on 10 November 2010.

ON CONSULTATION

1.  In an attempt to dismiss our complaints about inadequate consultation, Sarah Rapson states in her answer to Q64 that IPS took part in informal meetings with PCS; we also understand that Damian Green has recently provided minutes of a meeting with the union that took place on 28 September. IPS management seem to be suggesting that PCS was prepared to consider accepting office closures, which is not the case. We did indeed take part in informal meetings, during which the closure of the Newport office was discussed. What IPS management has not made clear, however, is that throughout those meetings PCS maintained a stance of implacable opposition to office closures and redundancies in any office within IPS - and, indeed, to cuts in jobs and services in any government department, in accordance with PCS national policy. Sarah Rapson also told the Committee that PCS had seen the full multi-criteria analysis prior to formal consultation but although some union reps were shown the analysis, this was not the version that was subsequently used and management were still showing us the old version several weeks after the formal consultation started.

2.  We wish to reiterate our dissatisfaction with IPS management's drip-drip approach to the provision of information during the formal consultation period.

DOCUMENTS REQUESTED BY PCS AND BY THE COMMITTEE

3.  PCS told the Committee that a document on the Application Processing Network Analysis Direction of Travel had been shown to PCS in August and then withdrawn. IPS management has now belatedly provided a copy of this document to the committee and to PCS, after having been asked to do so by the Committee Chair. The document raises more questions than it answers, however. The Minister has stated in his further submission that the document is, in effect, redundant and did not provide the basis for any decisions subsequently made by himself or IPS. We find this puzzling, since the document was produced on 25 August and the ministerial submission on the Newport office was submitted shortly afterwards, on 13 September. Our understanding was always that the submission had been shaped by the Direction of Travel document, yet if the latter was effectively torn up between 25 August and 13 September, as the Minister now claims, then it remains unclear what analysis formed the basis of the submission.

4.  The document effectively argues that staff in IPS will increasingly become surplus to requirements due to a rolling programme of "operational efficiencies" running up to 2016, of which the closure of the Newport office is a part (see, in particular, the graph on page five of the document). Management have since informed us, however, that many of the planned "operational improvements" mentioned in the document have now been abandoned. For example: the projected future number of on-line applications has now been brought down to 45% and, most importantly, the project of "automatic" simple renewals and extensions has been abandoned. All that remains are some changes to Telephone Enquiry Bureau work and printing work, along with what is called in the document "operational excellence". This latter involves new working practices modelled on "lean processing" (on which we comment further below). It should be noted, however, that this is only at the trial stage and could not be relied upon to deliver efficiencies.

5.  There are currently only 50 surplus staff within IPS, according to management, and it is only through the implementation of "operational improvements" that the agency will supposedly find itself over-capacity by a margin of 300 staff. If, as we are now told, some of the most significant "operational improvements" will not happen after all, it is difficult to believe that 300 people will be surplus by the end of next year and the rationale for the Newport office closure disappears.

6.  In summary, the Direction of Travel document and the minister's comments on it demonstrate that IPS management has little basis for its prediction of 300 surplus staff by 2011, other than citing "operational improvements" that are only at the trial stage and will, we believe, deliver minimal efficiencies; and that if this document was abandoned, as we are now told, then IPS management's decision-making has been even more haphazard than it already appeared, with no clear basis for the ministerial submission that led to the office closure decision. One might conclude that IPS made their decision and then worked backwards from that position, producing arguments to provide ex post facto justification.

TRANSPARENCY

Cancellations of Interviews

7.  In response to Q93, the Minister stated that information about how many customers had failed to turn up for interview had not been withheld. This is simply false: after the Committee's evidence session, we gave a document to members of the Committee which demonstrates beyond doubt that that information has been withheld. The Minister has stated that some of this information is published as a matter of course - in which case, it seems incomprehensible that management should redact such information in communications with the union.

8.  In his letter to the committee of 15 November 2010 the Minister states that 352 applications to the Newport office resulted in cancellations of interviews, yet our point was about the effectiveness of the Interview Office Network - rather than the Newport office - in deterring fraud and figures for interview cancellations within the Network have still not been presented either to PCS or to the Committee.

Intimidation of staff who comment publicly

9.  Newport office staff have received letters from management containing an implied threat of disciplinary action, in relation to interviews that some of them had given to the media. Yet these interviews referred only to the personal circumstances of the staff in question and their concerns for the future if the office should be closed. We consider this to be heavy-handed and intimidating.

Welsh Language provision

10.  Throughout their evidence, IPS management maintained that there had been no intention or consideration of removing the Welsh Language Application facility in IPS. We have now, however, presented Committee members with the draft Equality Impact Assessment, which clearly shows that IPS management had been giving consideration to withdrawing the facility. IPS may now backtrack on this but the draft document demonstrates that they had considered breaching the terms of the Welsh Language Act - or, at least, trying to see how they can "get around" it. PCS reps in Newport have raised with management our concern that the provision of a face-to-face Welsh language service is already barely adequate and non-existent on Saturdays, only to be told that this does not mean there is any need to improve the service in future.

SERVICE TO WALES AND NEWPORT

11.  In response to several questions, the Minister and Sarah Rapson both stressed that there would be no change to the service to South Wales and the South-West of England. We remain highly sceptical about this. As Jessica Morden implied in asking Q120, it is very doubtful whether counter staff, security, fraud detection, processing, printing and the Welsh Language Service could all still be provided if there were a mere 30-35 jobs in Newport - especially when it is intended that the office should also conduct interviews of first time applicants. We believe that IPS management is cutting costs in preference to protecting and sustaining an award-winning service.

OTHER COMMENTS

12.  We have continuing concerns about the effects of "efficiency savings" on service provision, especially in relation to public safety. For example, "Operation Excellence" (referred to in paragraph 5 above), which is being trialled in the Durham office, against the objections of PCS, involves stripping back-office processing work of any processes deemed to be unnecessary, such as the examination of the counter-signatory section of the application form. The potential consequences of this are demonstrated by the concerns already raised by staff in the Interview Office Network (ION) regarding the introduction by management of a "Risky Decisions" log. This is to be completed following a passport interview, to record instances where a decision to fail an applicant cannot be justified under current policy but the interviewer or office manager is uneasy about the "pass" decision because of the limited quantity or quality of data available on the applicant, on which to base their decision. IPS acknowledge that such insufficient or poor-quality data might be a consequence of previous efficiency savings, such as the withdrawal of counter-signatory examination, or of a failure to act on warnings flagged up by the Personal Identity Process. This demonstrates that cut-backs in the application processing offices can adversely affect the quality of information available to interview office staff, to the extent that they cannot perform their duties to their own satisfaction. With identity theft in the UK estimated to cost £2.7 billion, the Government should be investing in services that protect identity yet, by introducing this log, IPS appear to be saying that making risky decisions is part of a passport interviewer's job. This represents the abandonment of the concerns that led to the ION's establishment and suggests that IPS is gambling with the safety of the public.

13.  In conclusion, PCS believes that the comments provided above further substantiate the concerns that we have already put before the Committee about the proposal to close the Newport office and the wider "efficiency" agenda within IPS.

November 2010



 
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