HC Deb 15 November 1990 vol 180 cc188-9W
Dr. Michael Clark

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will make a statement about the terms on which civil servants are relocated.

Mr. Ryder

As the House was informed on 17 January 1990 at columns288–89 departmental Ministers have already announced decisions to relocate a substantial number of civil service posts away from London and the south-east over the next two to three years. These transfers of work not only represent good value for money for the taxpayer but also give advantages to staff and management, plus important benefits to the new locations, nearly all of which are the focus of the Government's regional or inner-city policies.

The moves need careful planning. Many jobs which are being relocated will be filled by local recruitment, but sufficient numbers of experienced and mobile staff will need to move with their jobs so that continuity is maintained and essential work is not put at risk. Accordingly Departments ensure that their staff and the civil service unions are consulted. Departments make every effort to ensure that, wherever possible, even staff with a mobility obligation move on a voluntary basis, and, of course, they already have a number of measures available to them for assisting mobile staff to meet the costs of transfers that are in the public interest.

These measures include advances of up to six months' salary for house purchase, reimbursement of the actual costs of moving, special arrangements for meeting additional costs where the move is into a more expensive housing area, meeting the interest costs of any necessary bridging loans, payment of additional travel costs as an alternative to moving home, and, for moves out of London, payments over five years of amounts up to the level of London weighting. This range of measures compares very favourably with those offered by private sector employers.

Most of these measures are intended for staff who decide to transfer their family home to the new location. Surveys of public and private sector relocations have shown that certain staff are reluctant to relocate for fear of damaging a spouse's career or disrupting their children's education at a key stage. Like other employers the Government take account of such concerns in the terms offered to staff relocating to a new area.

The range of relocation assistance available to Departments is therefore being widened to include the discretion to offer, where it is cost-effective to do so, an alternative to existing permanent transfer terms to mobile staff who, for domestic reasons, are reluctant to move the family home. The additional discretion will enable relevant staff to take accommodation at the new location without prejudice to their existing family home. The assistance offered will comprise an advance of up to six months' salary to secure the new accommodation, to be repaid over seven years, help with some of the setting-up costs, assistance with legal costs and a tapering allowance for up to 10 years to meet part of the mortgage costs. Such assistance will be conditional on agreement to arrangements for sharing between the individual and the Government the proceeds of disposal when he or she moves again and the new accommodation is sold. In addition all such assistance will be taxable.

The costs of these measures, which are expected to fall below the costs of existing transfer terms, will be contained within agreed running costs limits, and will be recovered from savings generated by the relocation.