PCS leader Fran Heathcote says government must invest in public services

The leader of the UK’s largest union for civil servants has warned the government to invest in public services or pay the price at the ballot box.

Public and Commercial Services (PCS) general secretary Fran Heathcote told delegates to the union’s annual conference in Brighton that ministers must stop attacks on the civil service.

She said: “Although the Prime Minister has scrapped Tory plans to slash 66,000 civil service jobs, there are still too many threats to jobs in many areas of government – and we will be fighting to defend jobs, and indeed to expand the civil service where we can make that case.

“We have to take on this false divide that has been brought up again recently – between the back office and the frontline. Whether it’s in the NHS, the police, the courts or the core civil service – the frontline cannot do its job without the back office.

“Just to be clear for any ministers or journalists listening: If you cut the back office, you damage the frontline.”

She said the relationship with the government had changed since last year’s election, adding: “We have to be honest in our assessment of the new government – both the positive and the negative.

“On the one hand, there is a level of engagement and negotiation that simply did not exist at all under the last Conservative Government.

“As a result we have secured agreement to protect the Civil Service Compensation Scheme and won an above inflation pay rise for our members.

“But if the government continues to attack working class communities, it will lose the support of working class people, and it will deserve to.

Reform isn’t winning because its message is popular, it’s winning because too much of what Labour is doing is deeply unpopular. 

“When you attack pensioners, attack disabled people, and attack workers’ jobs or pay, then don’t be surprised if they don’t then turn out to vote for you.

“The government must learn that lesson, scrap cuts to public services, scrap cuts to the Winter Fuel Allowance and disability benefits, and invest properly in public sector jobs, pay and services.”

ends