The UK's biggest civil service union has criticised the government's IT plans as it ballots members on industrial action over the Gershon Efficiency Review.
Members of the Public and Commercial Services Union are deciding whether to hold a national one day strike in response to government plans to cut over 100,000 public service jobs in its efficiency drive. Balloting starts on 4 October 2004 and the strike could go ahead a month later.
The Gershon Efficiency Review, published earlier this year, recommended staffing cuts alongside "rationalising" back office IT systems and encouraging the use of e-services as a means of transacting with public bodies.
Speaking to Government Computing News as the ballot started, the PCS cast doubt on the IT aspects of the efficiency programme.
"This whole approach is storing up trouble for the future," said a PCS spokesperson. "It's certainly a recipe for disaster as they seemed to have plucked the figures out of the air without thinking about the impact on projects that are likely to be cancelled.
"The government is saying that it is through better use of IT that will enable them to shed jobs. We are saying, that's OK but they have to ensure they get the IT right in the first place. Only then can they look at the human resource implications.
"What we don't want is to get to a situation like we had with the passport agency when they got rid of the staff, and then put in new systems only to find that they then needed the staff back."
Mark Sewotka, the PCS general secretary warned that the efficiency drive could jeopardise public services in general.
"Cuts on this massive scale will damage services we all rely on, from your child benefit to your pension credit," he said.
