Members of the Public and Commercial Services union (PCS) have agreed to ballot 250,000 civil servants for a national strike over government cuts to the public sector. These are the people who provide government services across the UK, from job centres to tax offices and courts.

They have been told that as many as 100,000 of their jobs could be under threat in the next four years. Just last week the Department for Work and Pensions announced the closure of 17 benefit-processing sites and 5 call centres, putting 2,400 jobs at risk. The loss of these jobs is likely to propel private businesses to the front lines, including debt management companies, who counsel consumers needing help with IVAs and debt management plans. As more and more Britons need help with debt, this role is going to grow.

The decision to poll civil servants was taken by delegates at the union's annual conference in Brighton. PCS general secretary Mark Serwotka claims: “We're facing hundreds of thousands of job cuts, we're facing communities that will see despair and decay in their public services.

“We're seeing cuts in people's income of 5% and now we're seeing the biggest raid on pensions in the history of this government as people are told to work longer, pay more and get an awful lot less”.

Voting in the PCS ballot will begin next week and the results will be announced in the middle of June, all to coincide with the actions of several teachers' unions, already in dispute over the government's plans to cut the value of their pension schemes. This raises the prospect of as many as 750,000 public employees taking part in strikes.

The government says it is disappointed by the union's decision. The minister for the Cabinet Office, Francis Maude, says: “We have been doing everything we can to protect public service jobs and front line services by cutting government's overhead costs.

“Doing nothing, as the PCS leadership advocates, is unfortunately not an option.”

The Association of Teachers and Lecturers (ATL), the National Union of Teachers (NUT) and the National Association of Head Teachers (NAHT) - have already decided to ballot their members, with the results to be published in June.

By James Murray