Civil Service may strike over job cut plan

Gordon Brown is facing the prospect of strikes over plans to axe thousands of civil service posts in London and the South-East.

Britain's largest civil service union will decide tomorrow whether to take industrial action

over proposals to cut up to 80,000 jobs. The Chancellor has already announced plans to axe 40,000 Whitehall posts and move a further 20,000 outside the capital.

The prospect of industrial action increased today after it emerged that the cull could be far more wide-reaching than expected.

Mr Brown is understood to be drawing up plans for a purge of public sector jobs - bringing the total number of redundancies to around 80,000.

The job losses are expected to be announced when he unveils his review of public spending this summer.

But the efficiency drive, which the Treasury hopes will free resources for improvements in public services, has triggered a furious backlash from unions.

On the first day of the Public and Commercial Services Union's conference tomorrow, delegates are expected to endorse a motion calling for industrial action by the union's 300,000 members unless the plans are drastically scaled back.

The threat of action comes the day after Job Centre and Benefits Office staff voted to stage strikes as part of their pay dispute.

Mr Brown has vowed to take the knife to Whitehall's bureaucracy after a report by Sir Peter Gershon recommended 10,500 staff could be axed by merging the Inland Revenue and Customs & Excise.

A separate review by Sir Michael Lyons has called for 20,000 civil servants to be moved from the South-East to other parts of the country.

But both the Chancellor and the Prime Minister are keen to see the total number of jobs cut in central government reach "up to 80,000" as outlined in Sir Peter's report.