05/03/10 ~ Important note regarding industrial action on Monday and Tuesday 8 and 9 March
You may have seen in the national news that the Public and Commercial Services Union are planning industrial action on Monday and Tuesday 8 and 9 March across the Civil Service. This will directly affect RPA. While we have plans to try and limit the impact on farmers, with a two day action it is inevitable that there will be some disruption to normal services.
This action is likely to be most keenly felt by farmers using RPA frontline services, primarily when calling the Customer Service Centre. We won’t know the extent of the industrial action until Monday, however indications are that the CSC will only be able to offer a very limited service. While we will try to answer as many queries as we can there are alternatives until things return to normal towards the end of next week.
Cattle farmers who use the BCMS will still be able to use the CTS Online service to apply for cattle passports and report movements. On SPS, we will make sure that we focus the resources we have on dealing with outstanding payments. The RPA website will be unaffected for customers who require general information.
Page published: 26 August 2010