PCS Launches HMRC/VOA Pay Survey

As a result of the strategy overwhelmingly endorsed by the union’s members, the PCS national campaign has already secured significant gains in 2023, but after well over a decade of pay restraint imposed by the government, pay in the civil service is still trailing.

Ahead of a series of meetings with the Cabinet Office, agreed as part of those 2023 proposals, it’s vital that those running the civil service at the highest level, are clear about the real impact that the government’s pay policy is having on the ordinary workers who make up its own staff. 

Pay Survey launched

Given our very real concern that the government’s policy-makers are so far removed from the day-to-day problems faced by their own civil servants, that they’re totally oblivious to the hardship that they’re creating; PCS is launching a survey, asking the tens of thousands of our members in HMRC and VOA to make that point clear.

We’re launching the survey on 31 October 2023 – Hallowe’en – with the theme of “Tell us your Pay Horror Story”.

The survey is fully compliant with data protection legislation, and invites you to tell answer a few short questions, including:

• Asking you to tell us a little bit about yourself, so we can find out more about any equality issues that might be arising from your pay
• Asking you to tell us a little bit about your job: such as your grade and how long you’ve worked for the department
• Asking you to tell us a little bit about how the level of civil service pay impacts you
• Asking you if you would be happy for PCS to get in touch with you.

It will only take around 3-5 minutes to complete the on-line survey and submit your response. We’re asking all members to respond to the survey by no later than 5:00pm on Friday 17 November 2023.

How to find and complete the survey

HMRC’s systems block downloads coming directly from PCS, and so an email containing a link to the survey is being sent to the personal email address that we hold for you. PCS holds the personal email addresses of the majority of members in the group, but there are a few addresses that don’t have. So if you know someone who is a PCS member and who hasn’t received the email with the link to the survey, the most likely reason is that we don’t hold an up-to-date personal email address for them. You can help those colleagues have their voice heard by encouraging them to let us have their details, either by registering directly with PCS or by asking their local PCS representative to assist them.

If you have any problems accessing the link from your personal email address, please contact your local PCS representative, who can contact the group office and arrange for a copy of the link to the on-line survey to be sent to you.

Remember: completing the survey will help your union put our case to the Cabinet Office in the forthcoming national talks, so please take the few minutes necessary to complete it, and make sure you do so by no later than 5:00pm on Friday 17 November 2023. 

Join PCS

As your trade union, PCS continues to negotiate with HMRC to stand-up for your interests. If you’ve read this briefing and you aren’t yet a member of PCS, then you should join today.