ClickAJob News

Civil servants have approved strike action on January 31st, the deadline for self-assessment tax returns.

The Public and Commercial Services union (PCS) said that 61.3 per cent of its members voted for industrial action in opposition to the 100,000 job cuts planned within the civil service.

After the January 31st strike a two-week ban on overtime is set to be imposed.

PCS general secretary Mark Serwotka said that the "overwhelming" ballot result reflected "the depth of anger among the government's own workforce against crude job cuts and below inflation pay offers".

"Patience has worn thin with services suffering as a result of job cuts, billions being spent on private sector consultants and some of the lowest paid facing a pay cut in real terms," he said.

"If the government are going to avoid ongoing industrial action, starting with disruption to the self assessment deadline, then they need to give assurances over jobs, services and privatisation as well as making serious headway in tackling pay inequalities and low pay in the civil service and related bodies."

But Cabinet Office minister Pat McFadden sought to dampen the flames, insisting that "there is no need for strike action".

"The government values the civil service highly. If PCS members have concerns about job losses or pay there is an established industrial relations process to discuss these issues," Mr McFadden said.

"The PCS are the only civil service union to have balloted for strike action. We will do everything we can to avoid compulsory redundancies but cannot give guarantees it will never happen throughout the efficiency savings [as set out by the 2004 Gershon review] process."