The worst was expected today. The blow is still a severe one for 120 people. The security of jobs in the future is not certain. But today's news is good.
The Government has reacted to the strong campaign for a fair distribution of cuts across the UK. It's thanks and congratulations to the workforce, the unions, The South Wales Argus, and local and national politicians.
I hope this will be a turning point in the fortunes for the heart of Newport's shopping area. Strenuous efforts are now essential to ensure that as many redundant workers as possible are redeployed in the other civil service offices in the city and elsewhere in South Wales.
In October I called for a united campaign to defend our Newport Jobs. This has happened to the credit of all concerned.
I spoke to the Minister Damian Green at one o'clock today. It was a grown-up, generally amiable conversation. I am convinced that the Government were determined to close the Newport Office with a rump of 30 jobs left. This was a simple solution that would have been easy to implement. The alternative announced today required detailed planning. It is fairer to Newport and the Newport taxpayers.
E.R
Monday, 23rd May 2011
HOME OFFICE Identity and Passport Service: Restructuring
The Minister of State for Immigration (Damian Green): I am today placing in the Library of the House the Government’s response to the collective consultation exercise carried out with staff and trade unions on ceasing the passport application processing capacity at Newport passport office.
I had announced shortly after commencement of the consultation period in Autumn 2010 that the Identity and Passport Service would retain a Customer Service Centre at Newport. I can confirm that will remain the position and will provide 50 FTE posts at Newport to deal with the 47, 000 customers from South Wales and the South West who make use of the Newport office.
The consultation period was extended by two months at the request of key stakeholders. We have taken that opportunity to listen and to evaluate the responses received from staff, trade unions, Members of this House and the Wales Select Committee, Members of the National Assembly for Wales and local leaders in Newport.
We have also taken into account other organisational changes impacting on IPS, particularly the effect of voluntary exit schemes. Some 170 operational have left IPS since autumn 2010 on a voluntary basis. That has provided IPS with the opportunity to consolidate some of its operational functions throughout their regional network.
We are maintaining our intention to cease the processing of postal and online applications at Newport. This remains the most effective approach to achieve the necessary reductions in excess staffing levels and capacity in the application processing network.
However, as a result of the consolidation work undertaken by IPS, a further 100 FTE posts will be located in Newport. The Newport office will maintain the IPS central customer complaints and correspondence function and share telephone customer enquiry handling with the Durham office. The handling of lost and stolen passports will be located at Durham and Peterborough and a specialist counter-fraud team will be based at Newport. The processing of overseas passport applications will be carried out in Liverpool, Durham and Belfast after repatriation in 2013.
The current premises in Newport will be retained until the lease break in 2013. After that date, the size of the premises used for Newport will be reduced by 50%. IPS will give up excess space at their offices in Glasgow and Durham by the end of the current financial year. The Durham estate will be reduced further by March 2014 to achieve an overall reduction of one third of current capacity. A strategic review of the North West Estate will be carried out and the options for Peterborough estate assessed after the main lease break in July 2013.
The programme of work combined with the voluntary exit schemes will reduce capacity by 300 posts. The proposed consolidation of specialist work across the regional offices will lead to a surplus of around 120 FTE posts in Newport compared to the original proposal to make 300 posts surplus. IPS will continue to work with those staff, with trade unions and others to find suitable alternative employment within IPS and elsewhere.
IPS commenced the consultation with the aim of a reduction in estate of around 19% and delivering savings of approximately £24 million over the Comprehensive Spending Review period. The planned programme of work will deliver anticipated savings of £22.6 million over the CSR period, subject to carrying out a further voluntary exit scheme later this year and rationalisation of the estate will reduce the overall IPS estate capacity by 15%.
saving 50 jobs is better than nothing but it is disgraceful wales has been hit hardest by the cuts.
newports offices have always been the place new procedures and services have been tested before going national and the staff have always done there best to aacomadate the service.
i commend you paul in trying to save the jobs but welsh politicians dont seem to have the ear of ministers in parliament.
the welsh are treated like second class citizens in the uk.
maybe wales being a strong labour voting region is another reason the cuts went further than in england.
this seems another reason to close the welsh assembly which just seems to be an expensive,money wasting talking shop, not able to protect welsh jobs from westminster cuts.
with 30% cuts in local government there is very little hope the people made redundant getting civil service jobs in wales.
i am very sorry newport passport staff will lose their jobs and i wish them all the best in getting work elsewhere in the civil service.
Posted by: tracey | May 23, 2011 at 05:50 PM
"this seems another reason to close the welsh assembly which just seems to be an expensive,money wasting talking shop, not able to protect welsh jobs from westminster cuts."
Right so you consider that Wales would be better protected from England focused parliament by getting rid of the only elected body whose first priority is Wales rather than say getting more power for the Welsh assembly than the English have currently allowed.
The powers of the assembly are less than most would have wished for, but they are more than the nothing that your suggestion would give us and it gives us a firm foundation to build on, do you not see that?
The only type of government that will put the needs of Wales ahead of the needs of London and the south of England will be an elected Welsh body, but a lot still needs to be done to wrest the necessary powers from Westminster and that can best be done by having an elected body here in Wales doing just that.
It seems to me that there is no reason to close the Welsh Assembly but a lot of reasons to support it and to advocate increased powers for it.
Posted by: HuwOS | May 23, 2011 at 06:17 PM
How do you feel, Paul, about Cheryl Gillan trying to claim all the credit for this change of heart?
She was completely humiliated by the original announcement, and it was obvious that she had not been consulted on the issue - but even more demeaning - she had not even been informed of the announcement.
Of course - she is so busy in her constituency of Amersham, fighting the HS2 scheme that perhaps it had just escaped her attention, but still . . .
And now she is trying to claim all the glory. Politicians, eh???
Posted by: Sion E Jones | May 23, 2011 at 09:31 PM