Doesn’t The DWP Ballot Mean That Left Unity Isn’t As Bad As You Claim? No.
We’re tempted to leave it at that, but no doubt a Left Unity loyalist will demand proof positive of the No. So here goes.
Firstly, we must recognise the very narrow focus of the demands set out in the ballot: use available funds to temporally move staff off the min wage and introduce some pay differential between AAs and AOs etc. We say temporary as LU admit that with the monies available it means that in 2027 we will probably be back in the same mess as we are now; that is staff will be caught up by the min wage again.
Then there is the timing; right before AGMs and the GEC elections. This is standard procedure for LU, begin a dispute/ballot/campaign before/during elections. So the ballot is partly an election ploy.
All the leading LU leaders in DWP, as far as we can see, are on 100% facility time. That materially cuts them off from the shop floor. Despite this insulation though they are susceptible to membership pressure. So they recognise that year after year, more and more people in the department are clustering at the legal minimum wage. This is felt by them. The ballot is part reaction to this.
Probably equally important however is that they are personally affronted by the disrespect that senior managers in DWP show in dismissing the arguments put forward by them – after all they are important people! So the ballot is part about reasserting that the leadership should be respected.
We would do things differently if we were in charge – we would aim for a different type of a dispute – one that would tackle head on the systematic problems we face in DWP:
• end the multi-tier work force
• no Saturday working or late night working unless overtime is offered
• guaranteed progression for HEOs and above;
• arrangements put in place so that AAs are always above the min wage – on a real living wage – and that there are real pay differentials between AAs, AOs and EOs.
We need a leadership that looks beyond the next few months and fights for a long-term settlement that respects the work we do.
If you want a union that fights for that rather than a temporary fix, vote for the Independent Left and others in the 2026 DWP GEC elections.
Tag Archives: Independent Left
Confronting Left Unity’s Fake Optimism
In PCS’s most recent update, ‘News from the NEC – December 2025’, you will read Left Unity negotiators express “cautious optimism over [PCS’] core demand to end delegated pay bargaining and to introduce more coherence through national pay bargaining.” However, they also quietly admit there is “nothing concrete” at this stage.
As the Independent Left (IL), we look past “warm words” and analyse the material reality of these talks. Therefore we are extremely sceptical that any genuine progress is being made toward national bargaining; our scepticism is based on two realities: money and a total lack of union pressure.
The Economic Reality: The Cost of Equalisation
If the Cabinet Office is actually signalling a move toward national bargaining, that promise is only meaningful if it leads to the equalisation of pay across the Civil Service. Currently, the system is a mess of delegated authority where different departments pay vastly different rates of pay to staff in the same grades. Levelling everyone up to the highest pay point per grade would cost hundreds of millions of pounds. This is money that has not been budgeted for in the current Spending Review. So ask yourself: is it likely that this government, which is actively seeking to reduce the cost of the Civil Service, will spontaneously agree to a massive, unforced increase in the wage bill?
The Power Gap: Lessons from the BMA
Left Unity is asking you to believe that the Cabinet Office might possibly overthrow 40 years of established industrial practice simply because our negotiators have put forward good arguments!
Compare our situation to the BMA Resident Doctors. They have taken extensive industrial action and have won significant pay rises. Even then, they are still forced to fight on for full pay restoration and for more training places. The government only moved because they faced a genuine crisis in the NHS and a union willing to exert maximum pressure.
If the government moves this slowly when faced with a high-profile crisis and massive strikes, why would they give PCS anything when we aren’t applying any pressure at all? There is currently no threat of industrial action, no legal challenge, and no political leverage being applied. In that vacuum, Ministers have no incentive to concede anything.
Pre-Election Spin vs. Real Solutions
We believe Left Unity is spinning these “discussions” because the NEC elections are on the horizon. Senior Managers may well acknowledge the “concertina effect”—where the rising minimum wage is crushing pay differentials for AA, AO, and EO grades—but acknowledging a problem is not the same as actually solving one.
A real solution would require an agreement that as the minimum wage rises, the wages of AAs, AOs, and EOs would also rise to maintain pay differentials. This would effectively mean automatic pay increases and there is no evidence that the government is prepared to agree to such a radical shift.
We suspect that once the NEC elections are over, and if LU wins, we will discover that these claims of progress had no substance.
For us, the only way to win national bargaining and equal pay is through a serious strategy of industrial, legal, and political action. But Left Unity, as they have proved in their decades of being in control of the union, are incapable of such action.
If you believe that such action is needed then vote for us in the upcoming elections and consider joining us: https://pcsindependentleft.com/join-us/
PCS’ Social Media and Persona Non Grata
Those with a keen eye will have noticed a conspicuous absence in PCS’ recent social media postings during the recent TUC Congress that expose an unacceptable and ongoing abuse of the union’s media channels. Whilst PCS officials found time during conference to interview a former Deputy President of PCS, long gone from the civil service, seeking his views on the Employment Rights Bill, the actual Deputy President, Bev Laidlaw, who was also in attendance, was not featured in a single post during conference. The reason for this is not hard to identify; Bev is Independent Left, not Left Unity. This fact alone seems to make her persona non grata in the eyes of those who control PCS’ publicity and media platforms.
This is not just an oversight. It is a repeated, calculated practice. To date, Bev has never once been interviewed or even properly acknowledged on union social media in her role as Deputy President. At the same time, LU-aligned officers and NEC members feature regularly, boosting their profile and boasting of their activities within the union. This amounts to nothing less than factional censorship, using the union’s own media resources to build up one group while erasing the existence of others.
Such behaviour is a betrayal of the membership. Every PCS member pays their subs; every elected officer is chosen by a democratic vote. PCS media is not the private property of one political grouping. It belongs to the whole union. Yet by manipulating coverage LU is treating official channels as a propaganda arm for their slate. This grossly undermines the principles of democracy and transparency on which trade unionism depends.
The consequences of LU’s actions are not minor. When members can see plainly that communications are skewed, trust in PCS leadership is eroded. When the second most senior elected lay officer in the union is deliberately excluded because of her affiliation, it sends a signal: your vote only counts if you support the ruling faction. This is not representation; it is control by omission.
As Orwell warned in 1984, the tactic of making opponents into “unpersons” is a tool of authoritarianism. For PCS to engage in such behaviour is shameful. Our union should be leading by example, modelling fairness, inclusivity, and respect for democracy. Instead, it mirrors the very injustices we are supposed to oppose in the workplace.
This practice must end immediately. PCS communications should serve the whole membership, not the narrow factional interests of those who presently dominate the NEC. To continue down this path is to hollow out democracy itself.
So, What Have We Achieved?
“What have you achieved?” is a legitimate question that members will put to the Coalition for Change (CfC), particularly in light of our opponents’ claim that we are the Coalition of Chaos (ho-ho-ho) and that we have not achieved anything.
Well, despite the best efforts from Left Unity’s General Secretary (GS) and President to obstruct us, the CfC has actually managed to get things done.
Of course, not in getting a national campaign off the ground. Between the General Secretary’s effective refusal to carry out the National Executive Committee’s (NEC) instructions and the President ruling CfC motions out of order, Left Unity (LU) ensured we have not really or effectively challenged the Labour government despite its attacks on the Civil Service. In later postings, we will set out why we think that was so, but for now, it is enough that it is so.
Despite all that, we have managed:
- To draft PCS’ first-ever green claims, in which, the union, for the first time, makes demands on the UK Civil Service with regards to net zero and the green transition.
- To draft a model AI and Robotics agreement, that places demands on the employer to ensure AI and new technologies are implemented in consultation with the union and sets out protections for staff.
- To draft a disability rights agreement.
Again, though, the dead hand of LU holds things up. The President and the GS don’t want the NEC to meet to progress issues. Although the NEC is supposed to meet every month, this has not happened. Each NEC should last a day, but they have refused this as well. Despite all of the above agreements having been drafted and submitted for discussion, not one has been heard or discussed by the NEC. They just get moved from one NEC to another. They are still waiting to heard and agreed.
Even when motions are heard and agreed upon, the General Secretary doesn’t action them; partially because the union bureaucracy is incompetent. The GS obviously forgets what was agreed, but also because LU doesn’t want to do the work; they are lazy.
Nevertheless, the CfC pushed through a motion on pay and terms and conditions for digital staff, a group of members that LU has wholly ignored, and a motion adopting the four-day week as a demand – which, by the way, LU opposed!
We passed a motion instructing the GS to collect pay data so that we can equality audit the UK civil service and a motion instructing the GS to actually work up strategic legal cases, such as taking equal pay claims.
The CfC ensured that PCS actually replied to the Civil Service’s consultation on Trans rights. Not only did we make sure that we lodged a response, but we also ensured that Pride was properly consulted as to how the union would respond, and that our response reflected union policy.
The CfC prevented the GS from spending even more of your money on staff. The General Secretary, without informing the NEC, let alone talking to them, paid out over £600K on redundancies to create a new, top-heavy with senior managers, staffing structure which costs £1M more in salaries than the previous structure. Without the dogged resistance from the CfC, the GS certainly would have gone further.
Of course, if we have a majority on the NEC and the President’s position, then we can actually have a national campaign, ensure that equal pay claims are lodged, make sure we put the AI agreement to management, lodge our green claim, and so much more.
This, of course, all depends on your vote and the work you can help to put in on the ground to get the vote out to support of the ambitions of the CfC.
This NEC election is a simple choice between the CfC, who want a better union, one you deserve, or leaving Left Unity in control, which means more stagnation and no effective resistance.
“Our Work, Our Way” – No to Arbitrary Office Attendance Mandates, Yes to Workers’ Choice
Labour Ministers reiterate the Tories’ office attendance mandate
In November 2023 the Cabinet office, under the direction of the then Conservative Government, issued the instruction that Civil Servants must return to in-person office based working for a minimum 60% of their working time. At the time the PCS Independent Left set out the unequal, unnecessary, and unworkable, nature of this arbitrary decision.
We highlighted how a Tory Government empowered by its earlier imposition on the Civil Service of the lowest pay award in the Public Sector during that year’s pay round, sought to rain down further blows upon Civil Servants to shore up its voting base and divert attentions from its own failings. We provided key equality and other arguments for a more flexible approach that covered members in operational roles and that would protect the rights of the many members who need to attend their workplace for personal or other reasons.
A year later, on 24 October 2024, despite General Secretary Fran Heathcote’s claim that she would hold their feet to the fire, Keir Starmer’s Labour Government has, in complicity with the Cabinet Office, reiterated the Tories decision that Civil Servants should spend a minimum of 60% of their contracted hours working from the office: irrespective of the nature of Civil Servants’ work and their personal circumstances or preferences, despite technology allowing for more flexible working practises, and ignoring the demonstrable successes of remote working during and since the COVID19 pandemic and the flexibility and adaptation shown by workers in delivering vital public services.
Labour’s League Table of office attendance
The Labour Government simultaneously reinitiated the publishing of departmental attendance data, despite the numerous flaws and inconsistencies with, and between, departments’ attendance recording systems, the intrusiveness upon staff, and the gap between the data and reality. The purpose of this competitive league-table approach is obvious: . Departments which frogmarch and cajole their workers back into offices are to be praised, whilst those who value a flexible approach to hybrid working, who trust their staff’s judgement as to how they might best work, are to be spotlighted, admonished, and pressurised.
Legal entitlement
Permanent Secretaries should have properly considered, and publicly set out their reasoning, whether civil servants who have long worked from home for 60% or more of their contacted hours have a contractual or custom and practice right to continue to do so. Instead, they have essentially ignored these legal issues and reserved their “right” to require greater than 60% workplace attendance in the future.
A weak response from the PCS General Secretary and her allies
The response from the PCS General Secretary, and her Left Unity allies – who together run PCS without regard for its rules, its democracy, and the views of the majority of PCS NEC members – has been poor at best. We will return to their failure in a future posting. Here we focus on key policy issues and what needs to be done.
PCS’s default position – “Workers’ Choice”
PCS’ default position must be that civil servants should have ultimate flexibility to choose whether and when to work from home or the office, including operational staff where this can be enabled by technology.
Protecting civil servants who need or prefer to attend the office
An essential aspect of this in principle position of “workers’ choice” must be that members who wish to attend the office, or need to do so for well-being reasons, should be provided with good quality accommodation, with appropriate H&S measures in place, and, where appropriate, with reasonable adjustments. They should also have the right to decide how long they will be in the office for on any particular day, making time up at home on the same day or later if that is their preference or need, especially if it enables them to avoid expensive, crowded, peak hours travel and more easily care for dependants.
Support the local disputes but launch a national campaign
PCS should have already launched, but must now launch, a collective national response to the mandating of 60% office attendance. Our employer’s decision is a national one and we should respond on the same level.
Existing campaigns by groups and branches within PCS such as the Office for National Statistics (ONS), His Majesty’s Land Registry (HMLR) and the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS), and, most recently, the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, who have incorporated demands regarding the 60% office mandates within their respective live disputes, are to be commended.
However, this issue cuts across all parts of the civil service and the government decision announced in October 2024 was declared to be a cross civil service decision, While national PCS should vigorously support all “local” campaigns against enforced office attendance, those struggles should be incorporated into an effective national campaign with clear, civil service wide demands and a civil service wide critique of the 60% policy.
The Independent Left believes:
- Those who undertake their work know best how to structure that work.
- Civil Servants, including operational staff with appropriate technological support, should have ultimate flexibility to choose whether and when to work from home or the office.
- Member’s choice, the need for managers to trust and respect staff’s judgment as to when and where they undertake their work from, should be the lodestar of a nationally initiated and coordinated campaign, supporting business unit level PCS representatives with key National actions, messaging, and guidance.
- Members’ choice must be the genuine lode star of a real PCS campaign, not some “nice to have” paper policy that occasionally gets read out as a “sound bite” by the Left Unity General Secretary.
- That gains from technological developments must be shared by the workforce, and that jobs must be safeguarded for staff where technological developments are made.
- Civil Servants should, where they choose to, be able to work from offices that are safe, comfortable and be afforded all the proper equipment and all necessary reasonable adjustments.
- Civil Servants should, in accessing offices, be able to do so in a flexible manner, attending at the hours appropriate to them, allowing them to travel and plan around caring and other responsibilities.
How should the union develop its campaign?
On the basis of the above points, not least the need for a national campaign, PCS must:
- Insist that the Cabinet Office comply with its duty to consider and publish, in consultation with PCS, all the equality evidence relevant to the 60% mandate.
- Demand that the Cabinet Office produces a post-implementation impact assessment, which it can and should do from the November 2023 Tory decision to date.
- Must demand that each Department works with the unions in equality impact assessing mandatory attendance, including differential impacts between operational staff and Corporate Centre/HQ staff.
- Ask in each department for a breakdown of, for example, part-time and full-time workers, by grade, ethnicity, gender, and “disability” and consider the differential impacts of 60% office working by length of contracted hours.
- Carry out its own equality impact assessments where possible because, even where PCS is nominally consulted, employer assessments are likely to be substandard.
- Provide guidance and training to full time officers (FTO) and lay representatives and instruct FTO and the PCS legal department, to identify and pursue legal test cases.
- Insist that workers should not be worse off than colleagues elsewhere because of the office they work in, noting that the Cabinet Office and individual departments have acknowledged that some buildings lack the space for 60% office working.
- Produce guidance and templates for members who have caring responsibilities, health and other grounds for challenging mandatory attendance “rules”, with associated training provided to representatives and a default presumption of PCS support for legal challenges.
- Use all communication avenues not just to publicise opposition to the latest attack but to make the political case for flexible working for civil servants and workers more generally, highlighting. The positive impacts on individuals and public services whilst pointing out the hypocrisy of;
- MPs, who are not legally or contractually required to attend Parliament, ever!.
- Successive governments, which have long reduced the civil service estate to “save money”, forcing staff to work in ridiculous conditions or work from home, but now demand that squeeze into our offices.
- Enshrine terms and conditions, including rights to flexible working, within contracts of employment, as was done in the old DCLG, subsequently DfT/MHCLG, by Independent Left supporters, including the current AGS John Moloney, to ensure that they could not be unilaterally worsened..
The above positions should be developed through membership consultation – the Independent Left want PCS to challenge the arbitrary nature of office attendance mandates and to truly embed flexibility within the terms and conditions of Civil Servants.
Whether it be office attendance, or the rota-ing of shifts, we recognise that it is those who do the work who know best how to structure that work. Workers having a say in how their work is carried out is the basis of Trade Unionism and should underpin a nationally initiated and coordinate campaign, supporting business units with key National actions, messaging, and guidance on that basis.
“Our Work, Our Way”!
IL Statement On DWP Elections
At present, the joint Independent Left/Broad Left Network candidate standing for DWP President, Bev Laidlaw, will be omitted from the DWP Group Executive Committee ballot paper on the stated grounds that she did not accept the nomination within the deadline.
Bev does not agree with this view and decision. Without going into all the detail here, Bev indicated her acceptance within the deadline, stating “please find attached my election addresses for DWP Elections 2024; DWP Group President and Ordinary GEC member.” On any reasonable reading a candidate stating that are attaching election addresses and identification the posts they cover is a statement that they do accept nomination for those posts.
Supported by IL and BLN colleagues (who are also standing as part of the Coalition for Change in the NEC elections), Bev has challenged this decision, although the “procedure” allowed for challenge is not one we would recommend and the HQ decision, as it stands at present, will mean that the LU candidate will be elected unopposed.
The wider view we take, and that Bev has expressed, is that trade unions should favour the maximisation of democracy, reduce obstacles to candidates standing, and promote contested elections rather than omit candidates for reasons unconnected to the key issues of whether a candidate is in membership, is a member in the relevant constituency, has been properly nominated, and has accepted nomination. Going forward after the election, we will therefore be looking to ensure PCS’ election arrangements reflect these fundamental democratic principles.
In the here and now, it is crucial that everyone of us, who wants change in our union, who is serious about winning on pay and wants democratic, accountable leaders, redouble our efforts to vote for and campaign for BLN/IL/Change candidates in Group and National Executive Committee elections.
You can read our programme here, and see the candidates we endorse here.
Vote for change.
PCS Independent Left 