Forum Topic

Job Centre closure - Feltham

This is an interesting document 'presently' on line.www.jobcentreplus.gov.uk/JCP/stellent/groups/jcp/documents/websitecontent/dev_015823.docThere are a couple of blank spaces in the document and if you click on them a link appears to further information such as the "2001" census the document appears to be based around.One of the links shows the number of staff in the West London district and yet one of the reasons for the closure of the Job centre appears to be staffing difficulties ..."Feltham Jobcentre regularly has to close floors and services due to staffing issues; the move to Hounslow will prevent this occurring and will therefore improve service to all customers."

Sarah Felstead ● 6432d7 Comments

This is really stupid, apart from the current job situation, there was a huge cull of DWP staff two years ago, and I understand from a former colleague they are so under pressure at Hounslow they are pulling in staff from other Agencies such as Pensions and CSA in some cases to help fill the gaps. This of course means their work gets left so somone else suffers. True no-one has a crystal ball to see this coming, but staff were already working under great pressure in JC+ several years ago thanks to the purge of many experienced staff. Chiswick JC closed a while ago and now Feltham, which means people have to schlep to Hounslow and get on the end of horrendous queues. If the people in charge of this had brains they'd be dangerous, no consideration for their clients or staff who will inevitably bear the brunt of people's frustration.

Vanessa Smith ● 6432d

www.jobcentreplus.gov.uk/JCP/stellent/groups/jcp/documents/websitecontent/dev_015822.doc  is about the proposed closure of Orpington Jobcentre Plus Office.and  www.jobcentreplus.gov.uk/JCP/stellent/groups/jcp/documents/websitecontent/dev_015821.doc  is about Service Delivery Review – Brixton Hill Jobcentre, Southwark, & Wandsworth District.

Sarah Felstead ● 6432d

Hello Vanessa.  Looking at this report, which is on the front google page and doesn't need much searching for, the staff statistics seem a bit strange.  The first two boxes on the published report show total staff and staff by gender, which appear to add up.  By the next box giving a break down of staff by age band, they appear to have lost a few people... 6 SEO's - 4 HEO's - 1 EO - 14 AO's - 12 AA's.  They do not appear to have found these people by the "Staff by Ethnicity" table because even though there is a get out column of 'unknown' they appear to have lost several SEO's and AA's.I imagine that when they did their consultations with Cllrs MP's Partners etc etc stating they had staff difficulties and that was the drive to close the office as the only way to improve services to Feltham, they forgot to give them up to date and correct information in their report writing?

Sarah Felstead ● 6431d

Sarah Felstead ● 6431d

As far as I know there are no more AA jobs in the entire DWP, the few that are left will go, that started some years ago, where they should have culled would be the HEO's up - but of course they're management.

Vanessa Smith ● 6431d

I wonder why they are removing the AA grade.  The staff missing from the published statistics report could have continued to run a public service in Feltham, there seem to be rather a lot of them ...  :-).

Sarah Felstead ● 6430d

I have no idea, but AAs in most of the Agencies were going.

Vanessa Smith ● 6430d