HMRC Queen’s Dock Building Closure Raises Health & Safety Concerns
As part of the coalition government’s strategy of making over 760,000 public sector workers redundant, the majority being in North West, the closure of the HMRC Liverpool building at Queen’s Dock has been the subject of discussions with the PCS union since early 2011.
With the intention of re-siteing their call centre to the Triad Building in Bootle, HMRC have opened up a can of worms with regard to health & safety issues.
The Triad in Bootle became well known as being one of the worst buildings in the North West for ‘sick building syndrome’, despite housing the HSE at the time. That was in the ‘90s
Now in 2012, issues of health and safety are prompting the Bootle Taxes branch of the PCS to issue a notice to all its members in the HMRC contact centre currently based at Queen’s Dock Liverpool. They have also used Twitter to ensure as many members as possible see the information contained within.
The full text of the circular published today (18th January) is reproduced below:
The following is a joint message sent on behalf of the Bootle Taxes and the Liverpool Revenue Branches of the PCS Union.
As you are aware the department are in the process of organising the moving of Queens Dock Contact Centre to the Triad in Bootle.
As you would expect PCS have been involved in extensive discussions with the department over this move. We are sorry to report that on numerous occasions information we believe to be vital in order to assure the plans are safe has not been forthcoming.
We have been particularly concerned over issues around the Fire Alarm system and emergency evacuation routes. Although we have had verbal assurances that there isn’t a problem, we have waited for nearly 2 months for the department to provide us with a formal report on how they envisage fire evacuations would take place; and what would be the safe capacity of the Triad in relation to building regulations and health and safety legislation.. We were promised a response by Friday 13th. None was forthcoming.
Whilst awaiting the department’s response we carried out our own survey of the building. Our findings highlight numerous concerns over the fire evacuation routes and the alarm system.
As such due to the department’s failure to address this issue we have been forced to issue a formal notice detailing our concerns and requesting that alternative accommodation is now sought for Queens Dock Contact Centre.
We can assure all members that we have not taken this decision lightly, however we must put member’s safety first in determining how we respond to these issues.
We will issue further information on this issue towards the end of this week, and will keep you posted at every stage of the process.
On a wider issue, and of concern to all union safety reps, is the fact that the coalition government intends to privatise sections within HMRC. The call centre function being one, with the collection of taxes from businesses defaulting on payment of owed taxes having already been given over to private collection agencies. PCS are currently involved with industrial action at some of HMRC's contact centres this week.
Source: PCS
