Public and Commercial Services Union
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No appetite for mutuals in civil service and no public appetite for privatisation
The government's drive to hive off parts of the civil service into mutuals has been a damp squib because there is no appetite for it.
As Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude makes a fresh attempt to reheat the lacklustre policy ahead of the general election, the union says it remains telling that the first civil service mutual was met by such opposition from staff they were forced to take industrial action.
Since then, only the Cabinet Office's small 'nudge unit' has been mutualised. A survey by the respected Civil Service World newspaper at the height of Mr Maude's previous attempts to enforce the policy found only 16% of civil servants had any interest in even exploring the idea.
The union says the government has pushed for mutuals, and other 'joint ventures', because it recognises the public has no appetite for more privatisation and is trying to do it through the back door. Mr Maude has made it clear he would be happy for mutuals to be fully privatised in future.
PCS general secretary Mark Serwotka said: "Civil servants want to remain in the civil service, they do not want to be part of a mutual – a word that loses all its meaning when it is something being imposed on an unwilling workforce.
"This is clearly a desperate attempt to breathe life into a policy that no one wants to force through more privatisation that the public has no appetite for."
