TRADE unionists meeting in Glasgow today will call for an immediate halt to the Conservatives’ “ill thought out” plan to close half of the job centres across Scotland’s largest city. 

Civil service union PCS, which represents 50,000 staff in the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), has warned that closures will put thousands of jobs at risk and make it more difficult for unemployed people to apply for jobs. 

PCS national president Janice Godrich urged the DWP to “stop and think about the impact some of these closures on local communities and how they will undermine the support to members of the public who rely on them to help them get back to work.”

Ms Godrich warned that the proposals were “ill thought out” and that PCS is “opposed to these closures and will vigorously fight any attempt to force DWP workers out of their jobs.”

Last December the DWP announced it would close eight out of Glasgow’s 16 jobcentres by no later than March 2018, and then in January it announced further plans to close one in 10 jobcentres across Britain plus another 16 in Scotland.

SNP MP and PCS parliamentary group chairman Chris Stephens said he was “very concerned about the effects on claimants these closures will have” and that it was “an outrage” that there had been no equality impact assessments relating to the closures.

Mr Stephens, who will also speak at today’s meeting, warned there had been a “lack of analysis as to why these closures are taking place.”

He is working to secure a backbench debate on the proposed closures in the House of Commons.

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