PCS: Civil services cutbacks are contradictory

Mark Serwotka, general secretary of the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS), says plans to cut the civil service to its lowest numbers since 1945 are "contradictory".

"Rather than trying to outflank the Tories on public sector cuts, the government should listen to its own workforce which knows the damage that crude headcount reductions are having on the delivery of vital services such as tax and welfare delivery," he said.

"In contradicting its own advice on so called efficiency, the government is jeopardising the rest of the draft legislation by failing to recognise that you need civil and public servants to deliver it.

"These latest remarks will further damage morale amongst a workforce already battered and bruised by job cuts and a public sector pay policy that entrenches poverty pay by penalising some of the lowest paid in the public sector.

"The government needs to stop using the civil service as a political football and start listening to its own workforce."