De-centralised jobs cut from 95 to 87

Mr McCausland’s predecessor Alex Attwood announced the decentralisation of the Social Security Agency posts - which deal with State Pension - in March.

Mr Attwood said then that the jobs would be relocated from Belfast City Centre’s Windsor House, to the Agency’s offices at Carlisle House in Londonderry with the process to be completed by Spring 2012.

Mr Attwood said: “This is good news for Derry. Around 95 posts currently based in Belfast will be relocated, to sit alongside 300 staff administering Pension Credit in Derry.”

Now the new incumbent Mr McCausland has revealed that the number of jobs to be transferred has been cut by eight.

Furthermore the Minister revealed that just five Windsor House based civil servants are willing to transfer to Londonderry and that the rest of the jobs will have to be filled from elsewhere in the civil service.

DUP MLA Peter Weir asked how many civil servants were to be redeployed and how many will be relocated elsewhere within his Department.

He responded: “The state pension function of the Department, currently based in Belfast, will be relocating to Londonderry in the spring of 2012 to create a new single Northern Ireland Pension Centre. 87 posts will therefore relocate to Londonderry.

“Staff currently working in the State Pension Branch have been asked if they wish to move with the work and five members of staff have said they do.

“Those staff who have chosen not to relocate with their posts will be redeployed in line with the relevant Northern Ireland Civil Service policies.

“Additionally, the Department has an agreed strategy for filling the relocated posts in Londonderry that are not being filled by current State Pension staff volunteering to transfer.

“Until the process of identifying staff for all the relocated posts is complete, it will not be possible to identify what proportion of the staff involved are members of the Northern Ireland Principal Civil Service Pension Scheme.”