There have been two successful Learning at Work days over the past year with PCS at HMRC Blackburn, supported by Unionlearn in the North West. The Blackburn site is a relatively small one which focuses on tax compliance and has a mixture of staff working both in and out of the offices at Chaucers Walk on the Furthergate Industrial Estate to the east of the town centre.

A key element of the days was Mid-life Career Reviews using pre and post review questionnaires, the timeline activity and the "Value My Skills" cards, and this resulted in a number of requests for a range of support, with a particularly strong demand for more information about pensions. This reflects the fact that the workforce based at the site is an older one, with the youngest member of staff on site being in her mid 30s and the majority being over 50 years old.

In order to meet demand, ULRs John Hamshere and Steven Darbyshire went on to arrange a pensions seminar at the workplace on 12 September 2014 with PCS' financial partners, Lighthouse Financial Advice, and so as to meet the needs of a partly mobile workforce some offsite advice was also arranged.

John said:

"We are a small site and many staff work mainly outside the office, but nonetheless 44 out of 115 wanted go to the seminar. We held two sessions, each lasting just over an hour with questions and answers. As nine people who wanted to attend were out of the office on the day, we arranged for them to have home visits. After the seminars, 14 requested one to one advice, and again some of this was home visits. Everyone found they got something out of the seminars and one to ones, and were glad that they had been run."