CSPA General Secretary, Lisa Ray shares her thoughts on the past month (with added seasonal sparkle).
Welcome to the last update of the year. And what a year it has been! 2022 has seen some considerable challenges, as well as some great successes.
The frequent changes in Government, has made campaigning difficult for organisations like ours. In response we provided resources for members to also lobby their local authorities this year, to ensure access for older people to their communities and services.
We also delivered an in-person AGM – the first in three years! We received positive feedback from all those attending, with Permanent Secretary, Sue Gray as our guest speaker. She reflected on the importance and integrity of the civil service and made many of those attending feel proud of their time in public service.
We celebrated our 70-year anniversary this year with a souvenir booklet, an exhibition, and a successful Parliamentary reception, hosted by Clive Betts MP and attended by CSPA members, their MPs, and Peers.
Our platinum jubilee also provided a chance to take stock of where we had come from and where we want to go. This resulted in a new brand for CSPA with the strapline “protecting what you have earned, since 1952” which focuses on the roots of our organisation, established to achieve an inflation link for civil service pensions. Fair uprating of the pension continues as our focus.
We have also successfully delivered a new website which allows members to join us online – a development which we hope will encourage more recruitment. A new database with stronger capability, will help us to serve our existing and new members better.
We also launched a new travel insurance scheme for CSPA members with the Civil Service Insurance Society (CSIS).
Our work remains as important and relevant as ever, especially with the cost-of-living crisis.
We were able to successfully lobby alongside others for the state pension to be uprated by the triple lock. Pressure has been maintained on the Government to uprate the Civil Service Pension by CPI and we expect formal confirmation in January.
But we cannot do it without your continuing support. We are striving to recruit more members, so that we can continue to protect Civil Service Pensions and take on pressing issues affecting older people with our campaigning partners.
We have worked hard this year to raise our profile with Civil Servants approaching retirement by:
- Delivering two well-received online events with the Cabinet Office on the “McCloud Remedy”
- A presentation on CSPA and our work to the Department for Transport over 50’s network
- Attendance at Cabinet Office Regional Employer Forums for Civil Service HR staff
- A podcast with on preparing for retirement, featuring Vice-Chair Linda Ridgers-Waite
- CSPA promotional video on the civil service pension portal
- CSPA Personal Pensions Case expert, Chris Haswell, giving evidence on survivors and women’s pensions at a session of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on women and work
Next year will see us continue to build on this work to strengthen recruitment
In parallel to this our campaigns on your behalf will continue.
The Executive Council met last week to agree a programme of work for 2023 which takes on the motions carried at the AGM including, Social Care, access to Primary Health Care, Digital and Financial Exclusion and Pensioner Entitlements
As 2022 ends, and we look forward to 2023, on behalf of all the staff at Headquarters Office, good wishes to you, your families, friends, groups and members for a peaceful Christmas, and a happy, healthy New Year.
The Headquarters Office will close from Friday 23 December and reopen on Tuesday 3 January 2023
Thank you for your support. We look forward to continuing to work with you, and for you, next year.
Lisa Ray
CSPA General Secretary