MORE than 200 civil service staff in Clydebank were officially made redundant on Tuesday after the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) closed offices around the UK.
A total of 205 people worked at the Radnor House site on Kilbowie Road, with the closure branded by the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS) as "catastrophic".
However, the DWP told the Clydebank Post many of the 205 staff are to be redeployed elsewhere.
Around the UK, a total of 668 roles across 25 DWP back-of-house sites are being axed, alongside the closure of many Job Centres.
Clydebank MP Martin Docherty-Hughes slammed the UK Government for its decision, questioning the merit of the proposed "levelling up" plan.
He said: "It's shameful that the UK Government is pressing ahead with its decision to shut down DWP offices at Clydebank's Radnor House.
"Removing these jobs from one of the poorest parts of the country during a cost-of-living crisis is deplorable.
"I've raised the impact of local job losses repeatedly with Ministers in parliament, but frankly they couldn't care less.
"My constituents deserve so much better than the continuing disregard shown by this Westminster government."
The PCS union also released a statement following the news, blasting Westminster for hitting poorer communities.
A spokesperson said: "Members' jobs have been sacrificed on the altar of a flawed estates strategy.
"We condemn the DWP for pushing through an office closure plan that has resulted in catastrophic job losses.
"Many of these office closures and the resulting redundancies are in hard-pressed communities blighted by decades of under-investment and neglect by successive governments.
"The department and government's strategy for the DWP estate has nothing to support the so-called levelling up agenda and indeed has heaped more misery on those communities that need economic support up the most."
However, the DWP said that the majority of the Radnor Park office staff had been redeployed after being offered alternative locations at Atlantic Quay or Northgate House in Glasgow.
They also refuted the PCS claims that Job Centre staff would be impacted.
A DWP spokesperson said: “As part of plans to improve the services we deliver to claimants and modernise public services, DWP is moving some back office staff to better, greener offices, which will not affect any public-facing roles.
“This is not a plan to reduce our headcount – where possible, our colleagues in offices due to close have been offered opportunities to be redeployed to a nearby site, or retrained into a new role in DWP or another government department.
"We have fully supported our staff during this process.”
Three other Scottish offices closed for the last time on Tuesday in Dundee, Springburn and Kirkaldy.
