The closure of Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) offices is placing more than 1,100 jobs at risk and thousands more could be made redundant, the PCS union said.
Confirming to parliament that a number of offices across the country will be closing, Work and Pensions minister David Rutley said there will be around 12,000 employees who will be moving to different sites, with 28 offices involved.
He said about 1,300 colleagues will not be able to be moved as there are no other suitable sites nearby so will lose their jobs.
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Those who are losing their jobs are back-office staff, Mr Rutley said, adding it “does not impact job centres and the customer-facing interactions”.
The PCS union said the sites will be transferred to new premises by June 2023.
SNP work and employment spokesman Chris Stephens asked Mr Rutley to confirm if 3,000 jobs were at risk of redundancy.
He claimed the DWP is targeting offices in “high economic deprivation areas” which is “counter-intuitive to the so-called levelling-up agenda”.
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Mr Rutley said the closures will “support delivery of government priorities for getting people back into employment, deliver long-term savings for the tax payer and meet government commitments to modernise services”.
He added: “The department has developed a strategy which over the next 10 years will reshape and improve how, where and what it delivers payments to claimants.”
The minister, talking just after 10.30am, said the government has been in talks with the Public and Commercial Services (PCS) union for months and the announcement that people were going to be losing their jobs had been embargoed, so it was “very disappointing” they did not respect that.
Staff were being informed they were losing their jobs or at risk of redundancy from 10.30am today, he added.
“Clearly our staff should be top priority at this time and I hope that colleagues will understand that I am not able to go into all the details this morning as we are currently briefing affected colleagues as we speak,” he said.
Mr Rutley said the DWP is writing to MPs whose constituencies are affected after 1pm today and will publish a written statement to parliament on Friday morning notifying MPs of the planned closures.
PCS general secretary Mark Serwotka said: “The government was quick to clap civil servants at the start of the pandemic – they’re even quicker to scrap them now they’ve declared the pandemic over.
“Our members have worked tirelessly behind the scenes, keeping the country running, paying out benefits to almost two-and-a-half million families, helping them to put food on their table and keep a roof over their head.
“But now, as food and fuel prices rise faster than ever, they’re being abandoned by the government and left to fend for themselves.”
