The biggest civil service union intends to both ballot more than quarter of a million workers on strike action and seek a judicial review following government plans to slash redundancy pay-outs by up to a third.

 
The Public and Commercial Services (PCS) union claimed that cuts to the civil service compensation scheme, which comes into effect in April, are illegal and will pave the way for mass job cuts as the government attempts to cut public sector spending.
 
It added that an employee who is paid £24,000 per annum and has given 20 years of service could lose £20,000 in severance payments as a result of new caps on pay-offs for those being laid off and taking voluntary redundancy.
 
As a result, the PCS plans to ballot its 270,000 members tomorrow on whether to take rolling action that could bring individual areas of government to a halt for up to a week at a time. Such action, if approved by its members, would with a two-day walkout by job centre, customs and immigration staff in early March, followed by a series of strikes later in March and during April.
 
The aim is to generate “maximum disruption” and cause embarrassment to the government in the run-up to a general election. Candidates in key marginal seats would also face pickets at election rallies.
 
Mark Serwotka, the union’s general secretary, who fully expects his members to back the proposals, said: “Workers are being robbed of their accrued rights so it’s no wonder they feel so angry. The government is ripping up contracts and is showing shameful double standards by being tough on the low paid, but letting highly paid bankers off the hook by allowing them to keep their contractual rights to big bonuses.”
 
Talks between the PCS and the government broke down last week, but last night the government said that it had made a series of concessions to protect the lowest paid. The move had persuaded five other civil service unions, representing 100,000 workers, to sign up to the scheme.
 
Under the terms of the new initiative, staff will receive up to two years’ pay and those with sufficient qualifying years of service will receive a guaranteed £50,000. In the past, workers received the equivalent of three years’ pay, while those joining before 1987 were entitled to more than six years’.
 
The Cabinet Office claimed that the move was designed to bring civil servants’ severance payments into line with other public sector workers and that contingencies had been put in place to minimise the disruption caused by any strike action.
 
The government believes that the changes will save taxpayers £500 million over three years. Cabinet Office minister, Tessa Jowell, will lay an order in Parliament on Friday setting out plans for the changes.