As cost of living crisis continues to bite, even Jobcentre staff are facing a bleak future in Milton Keynes

The Department for Work and Pensions has launched a call for voluntary redundancy bids as part of its plans to change the Jobcentre Plus at Central Milton Keynes.

It was announced earlier this year that jobs would be lost at the Southgate House facility as part of DWP’s UK-wide cutbacks.

A DWP spokesman said: “The Jobcentre at Southgate House will remain open, and will provide the same customer service, as it does now. The planned change affects staff providing a back of office function.”

This week the civil service’s biggest union, PCS, condemned the job losses, which are some of many planned nationally.

DWP has this month called for voluntary redundancy bids and the union calculates 58 jobs are at risk at Southgate House.

They say these are part of more than 400 DWP job cuts nationally – on top of almost 800 announced during the summer.

Some Jobcentres will close completely.

The government insists the Jobcentre closures will support delivery of government priorities for getting people back into employment, while delivering “"long-term savings for the tax payer".

PCS union has just completed a strike ballot, during which more than 150,000 civil servants in 214 government departments were urged to vote ‘Yes’ for strike action over pay, pensions, jobs and redundancy terms. The results are due to be published tomorrow (Thursday) via Facebook Live.

The union’s general secretary Mark Serwotka claimed to Civil Service World online magazine this week that DWP had acted with “cynicism and callousness” in delaying the announcement of its latest wave of redundancies until the union’s strike ballot had closed.

“We’ll continue to fight these unnecessary office closures at a time when our public services are already over-stretched and we need more civil servants, not less,” he said.

“We’ll also fight for better redundancy terms for our members as the DWP has refused to commit to the terms of the 2010 scheme – a cynical move that could cost our members thousands of pounds.”

A DWP spokesperson said: “This is not a plan to reduce our headcount – where possible, colleagues in offices due to close are being offered opportunities to be redeployed to a nearby site or retrained into a new role in DWP or another government department,” they said.

“We are making every effort to fully support our staff through this process, including offering some affected staff the option of considering voluntary redundancy if they wish..”