DVLA Covid row as Government is accused of playing ‘Russian roulette’ with staff – Wales Online

The Government has been accused of playing "Russian roulette" with the safety of DVLA employees as the infectious Omicron variant of coronavirus rages around Swansea, after claims that it has limited the number of people who can work from home.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, the DVLA has had 1,700 staff who have tested positive for the virus, and has taken measures to ensure 2,500 of its 6,000 staff have been able to work from home.

But Swansea MP Geraint Davies and workers' trade union PCS feel that is not enough, and say they feel there should be more investment in home working to ensure the safety of more staff. There is currently 45 or fewer staff members who have the virus at present.

READ MORE:Coronavirus infection rates, cases and deaths for all parts of Wales

At the beginning of the first lockdown, the DVLA ran with 250 people on site, and the rest from home, Mr Davies said, adding that he felt a report on working from home produced by Deloitte had been "suppressed" by the Department for Transport and that level of home working precaution was therefore less than anywhere else in the civil service, such as the Department for Work and Pensions or the HMRC.

He said: "Obviously we all accept some work has got to be done at the office, but the issue is, the more people, the less social distancing, amidst a continuous eruption of Covid, even though they are claiming Omicron is not as serious to your health.

"Even though management agreed a system with the union PCS of more home working at the end of last year, after infection rates were again surging, the Government again has intervened and this is the second time the secretary of state for transport Grant Shapps has intervened to stop civil servants from the department introducing common sense precautions to keep people safe and to give them confidence and give them peace of mind to boost productivity.

"It is playing Russian roulette with the latest variant. We're now in the situation where the amount of people who have had coronavirus at the DVLA (over the course of the pandemic) is at 1,700.

"Thankfully, because of vaccination, we are not seeing death of the scale we saw before, but I think the attitude of the Government and in particular Grant Shapps, with the endorsement of Boris Johnson, who I've raised it with twice now, is placing fast and loose recklessly with people's safety.

"I guess they take the view that, oh it's alright, in all probability if they do get Omicron, they'll survive and go back to work, but the truth is, some people are more vulnerable than others and some people are in contact with family members who are more vulnerable than others.

"It's wrong from a management point of view, a business point of view, and from a human point of view, to be taking risks with the workforce."

National officer for PCS, Andrew Lloyd said it had been a "long running situation" with the DVLA, adding in the last month, there has been 291 new cases.

"We have been in a long running trade dispute about the way that the DVLA management has handled Covid in the workplace," he said.

"We think that they have never done enough to protect employees and more than that, they have mismanaged the situation. In comparison to the rest of the civil service, they have been the outlier in their approach on how to deal with Covid.

"The DWP and HMRC, the two bigger civil service departments, have had people working from home since the start of the pandemic and that has meant that they have been able to pay benefits and furlough payments for people working from home. The DVLA has never been prepared to do that.

"When there was an enforced lockdown at the start, they had most of their staff at home but doing no work, because they had not invested in technology. When they began opening things up they rushed people back into the offices and hence that's why it started a Covid crisis in the offices in Swansea, and that resulted in us taking industrial action to persuade them to do more. That resulted in a bit more, but never enough in our opinion."

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Mr Lloyd said that a recent measure brought in has seen staff getting a day off every week on top of their normal holidays, so that there are less people on site than normal.

"That's clearly better, but it does not go far enough in our opinion. It's an improvement but falls short on where they need to be," he said.

"There has got to be more investment to allow hybrid working. They have never been prepared to invest in that so they have been uniquely different to the rest of the civil service and they are still failing to keep pace with other private sector organisations. Our main concern of all is it puts our members at risk.

"It's the highest number of Covid cases at any one workplace in the UK. Our members go into work and the anxiety levels are just enormous. We have people ringing me and ringing our offices over their anxiety about being forced to go into work. People are still anxious because you just do not know how you are going to be hit with the illness.

"It's (coronavirus) going to be with us for a while yet. It just makes sense for people to be able to work from home. Part of the DVLA's reasoning is that they have sensitive data which can only be accessed from the site. But when you compare the sort of data that the DVLA and the HMRC hold, that's on a different level yet they are allowed to work from home.

"It's the lack of investment that has put the DVLA in this position."

The claims were put to The Department for Transport, which was contacted for comment, but it referred WalesOnline to the DVLA.

DVLA has spent over 5.7m to help keep staff safe on site, introducing safety measures including leasing two new building, fitting perspex screens, temperature check stations, increased and enhanced cleaning throughout the day, and regular on-site testing.

A spokeswoman for the DVLA said: "The number of positive cases at DVLA mirrors infection rates in the local community. There are currently fewer than 45 members of staff who would normally work on site that are self-isolating due to testing positive.

The safety of our staff is paramount and colleagues whose work does not require them to be on site will continue to work from home, as they have done throughout the pandemic.

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DVLA Covid row as Government is accused of playing 'Russian roulette' with staff - Wales Online