Civil service unions today threatened industrial action in response to Gordon Brown's announcement that 84,000 jobs will be slashed in England with another 20,000 to be axed in the devolved governments.
Mark Serwotka, general secretary of the country's largest civil service union, the PCS, and a member of the "awkward squad" of leftwing union leaders, accused the government of being more intent on cutting numbers than focusing on public services.
"Job cuts on this scale spell carnage for public services. When this government was elected they imposed the windfall tax to pay for initiatives like the new deal, now they are using their own workforce to pay for their policies," he said.
The scale of the job losses, together with the chancellor's announcement of a crackdown on sickness absence by civil servants was a "double whammy", the union said.
Mr Serwotka warned: "In light of such attacks on hardworking civil servants we will be consulting our members, taking our case to the wider trade union movement and to the users of public services in order to mount the most vigorous defence of our members' jobs. We cannot rule out industrial action in the face of such a serious attack."
He added: "The chancellor is creating a false divide between the frontline and backline. PCS members on the frontline know they cannot do their job without the vital support from the back office." The PCS also slammed the crackdown on sickness absence. Mr Serwotka said: "For the government to imply its own workforce are shirking is just another a slap in the face."
The First Division Association, which represents top civil servants, also attacked the chancellor's announcement as a "retrograde" measure aimed at winning headlines. Its general secretary, Jonathan Baume, said: "Job cuts announced today risk seriously damaging the ability of the civil service to develop and implement new policies and programmes.
"This is a very retrograde way of approaching efficiency, which seems more aimed at generating political beneficial headlines than creating a better equipped civil service. We had hoped that focusing on crude numbers-cutting was an approach abandoned 20 years ago. Even at this late stage I urge the political parties to end this jobs lottery."
The cuts would "inevitably lead to an increased reliance on external consultants and contractors which we know from experience end up costing the tax payer more in the long run", he added.
Dave Prentis, general secretary of public service union Unison, said the job cuts were prompted by a desire to steal the Conservative party's clothes on public sector efficiency. "What a shame that the chancellor should spoil a good news story about high investment in our public services with a petty attack on sick leave and announcements about so many job cuts," he said.
"There is a big public service agenda implicit in the review. It is difficult to see how the chancellor can manage that by cutting so many jobs - that is more to do with trying to steal the Tories' clothes than looking at what is important to provide high quality public services."
