Courts staff who collect fines and fixed penalties will walk out on strike tomorrow over government plans to privatise their work, the Public and Commercial Services union announces. The union says the move will put the collection of courts fines in the hands of private bailiffs. Following the revelation earlier this month that G4S and Serco had been overcharging on their electronic tagging contracts, the union called on the government to halt the privatisation plan.
In a letter to Peter Handcock, chief executive of HM Courts and Tribunals Service, the union's MoJ group president Jacqueline Green wrote: "Given the latest examples of misuse of public funding, the proposal to privatise criminal enforcement needs to be thought through and the timetable for implementation needs to be halted with immediate effect." The two-hour walkout across England and Wales coincides with protests in London and Manchester over cuts to legal aid, organised by the new Justice Alliance campaign group that includes the union.
The courts staff who work in fines collection and enforcement met their targets and improved collection rates by 15% last year. Citizens Advice Bureaux received 25,000 complaints about private bailiffs last year but, while existing public sector staff are rightly subject to strict regulation, there are currently no such rules governing private debt collectors.
PCS general secretary Mark Serwotka said: "The recent tagging scandal ought to have been enough for the government to hold back on privatising what is another sensitive area of our justice system. As part of a growing campaign against cuts across the justice sector we will continue to oppose this sell-off that risks exposing people to rogue bailiffs whose sole aim is to make profits."
