Civil servants working at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills' (BIS) soon-to-be-closed Sheffield site have started their latest round of industrial action against plans to axe their office and move all policy jobs to central London.
BIS confirmed last month that the St Paul's Place site, which currently employs around 250 policy experts, will shut by 2018.
Instead, the department is creating a combined London headquarters and policy centre, with BIS perm sec Martin Donnelly saying the relocation will help BIS to become a "smaller, more flexible department that will deliver £350 million in savings for the taxpayer by 2020".
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The department has said there will be no compulsory redundancies at the Sheffield site until 2018, and has offered to help with travel costs for the first three years for any officials who decide to make the move.
However, the largest civil service union – Public and Commercial Services (PCS) – has vowed to continue its fight against the decision, which it has warned will lead to a loss of expertise in the department and undermine the government's commitment to hand power away from Whitehall.
Following a fresh ballot of members at the site, PCS on Monday kicked off a round of action short of strike, which it vowed would "continue throughout the summer" until July 18. Action short of strike is intended to disrupt the normal running of a business without engaging in a full walkout, and members taking part are expected to shun overtime, stick to contracted hours, and refuse to put themselves forward to take on extra duties.
The PCS ballot saw a 56.3% turnout, with 94.1% in favour of action short of strike. The union said it now had a mandate to extend that period and "add extra days of all-out strike action" if needed, which would come on top of the five full days of walkouts which have already taken place at the Sheffield site.
“This vote for action indicates the determination of members to fight to defend their jobs and offices; it also gives PCS a clear mandate to organise action short of strike action in order to continue the pressure on BIS," PCS said in a statement.
Correspondence seen by CSW earlier this month confirms that the National Audit Office spending watchdog is looking into the business department's broader "BIS 2020" savings programme, of which the decision to close BIS Sheffield forms a part, following a request from PCS.