Letters From A Tory Daily views on British politics and the Conservative Party from a centre-right thinker who writes letters on his blog to politicians, journalists and many others.

Dear Mark Serwotka,

Very few people in the public sector are likely to escape totally unscathed from post-2010 election cuts in spending.  Pensions are likely to be hit seeing as the total public sector pensions liability has already topped £1 trillion and is still rising fast.  In addition, other measures are likely to be put in place and it sounds as though you, in your role as the General Secretary of the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS), think legal challenges are the best way to dig your heels in.

The Cabinet Office is proposing big cuts in redundancy terms, which can lead to payouts of up to 6.5 years of salary. The average Whitehall severance payment is three years of pay — much more generous than most public sector schemes.  A consultation paper issued this month proposes that compulsory redundancy should be capped at two years of pay and generous early retirement deals should be scrapped, meaning that those made redundant would be tens of thousands of pounds worse off.  Gordon Brown had already announced that Whitehall severance terms would be cut to save £500 million over three years and this also coincides with growing concern about the growing costs of public sector pay, pensions and benefits in the middle of a recession. The PCS, who represent the lower-paid officials, said that the Government wanted to cut jobs on the cheap: “This is a disgrace and is particularly cynical at a time when we can clearly see that tens of thousands of jobs are at risk over the next few years,” you said. The PCS says it will be taking legal action to try to stop the terms coming into force.  The FDA, which represents the top 4,000 mandarins, claimed that Mr Brown’s savings assumption was an arbitrary one and not based on calculations of reduced benefits, so they too are considering a legal challenge, particularly as present terms for all staff will only be protected until 2011.

In response to your moaning, a Cabinet Office spokesman said the Civil Service had a strong record of making efficiencies without redundancies and “the proposals laid out strike a fair balance between the interests of staff and of taxpayers.”  I think that’s a fair comment, seeing as the divide between the private sector and public sector (and even between most public sector workers and Whitehall) in terms of pensions and additional benefits is beyond absurd.  Compare 6.5 years salary in redundancy payouts to one month per year of service for large private companies down to only a week’s worth of pay for small ones.  Obviously public sector jobs are at risk to some extent but, bearing in mind that public sector employment is still rising during this recession while private sector employment has gone off the edge of a cliff, I cannot see how you think this is grounds for complaint.  Paying someone three years worth of pay on average is unbelievably generous and beautifully illustrates not only the increasing gap between the public and private sector but also the increasing gap between the public sector and reality.  No civil servant is worth that kind of money.  Couple this generosity with the continued existence of final salary pension schemes in the civil service (which have almost completely disappeared from private companies due to their unsustainable cost) and the taxpayer is left with a grotesque bill.

The civil service can perform an important role and I would never suggest otherwise.  However, for you to suggest that a public sector worker should receive such enormous lump sum payments when the vast majority of other employees across the country receive a fraction of that amount is just plain insulting.  Protecting frontline services while trimming the waste and inefficiency in the public sector is essential right now, let alone after the next election, and I for one want to see Whitehall pensions, redundancy payments, early retirements and several other benefits drastically curtailed.

Yours sincerely,

A.Tory