Jobs Threat at Teddington Laboratories

5.58.00pm GMT Mon 16th Oct 2006

Workers at the National Physical Laboratories are seriously concerned there could be job losses amongst support staff in the next few months. The service contract for NPL, currently carried out by Serco has been supplanted by a much cheaper contract and, despite concerns over quality expressed by the laboratory, the union (Prospect) and Vincent Cable, MP, the Minister, Lord Sainsbury, has approved the contract. Unions estimate that 40 to 50 staff employed on the service contract could be at risk of redundancy if the new company is to meet its cost cutting promises. Vincent Cable has now asked Lord Sainsbury to postpone the new contract until there are safeguards of quality in place and to spare the workforce redundancy notices over the Christmas period.

Vincent Cable said: "there has been a fierce battle behind the scenes over the last few weeks but I am afraid that concerns for quality and for jobs have been brushed aside. The current operators, Serco, are not exactly a 'soft touch' so I cannot understand how another 40% or so of cost is going to be squeezed out of the contract other than by sacrificing quality and sacking permanent staff and replacing them by agency workers. While the government - in this case the DTI - has a responsibility to secure value for money, it also has a responsibility to uphold the quality standards of the laboratory which is internationally famous for the premium and excellence of its work. Surely we have learnt from the short term economics in hospital cleaning and school meals that abandoning quality in pursuit of cost cutting and profit is a dangerous game".