Plans to cut some 104,000 civil service jobs across the UK could lead to industrial action, a union has warned. The job cuts, which Gordon Brown said would raise �21.5bn a year, meant "carnage for public services", said the Public and Commercial Services Union.
Its general secretary Mark Serwotka said it would consult members and the trade union movement on the plans.
The chancellor said the cuts were "efficiency savings" to allow more to be spent on frontline services.
The PCS union argued the scale of the job cuts threatened those services they are intended to benefit.
 | PLANNED JOB CUTS Education - 1,960 Health - 720 Transport - 700 ODPM - 400 Home Office - 2,700 Constituional Affairs - 1,100 Law Officers Dept - 50 Defence - 15,000 Foreign Office - 310 International development - 170 DTI - 1,280 DEFRA - 2,400 DCMS - 30 Work and Pensions - 40,000 Northern Ireland - 130 Chancellor's Depts - 16,850 Cabinet Ofice - 150 UK Trade and Investment - 200 |
Mr Serwotka said: "How are the Government going to deliver their promises on tax credits, winter fuel payments, immigration and closing tax loopholes in the face of such devastating cuts?
"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."
He also hit out at the chancellor's plans to crack down on sickness absence.
"For the government to imply its own workforce are shirking is another slap in the face," Mr Serwotka added.
His comments were backed by public service union Unison general secretary Dave Prentis.
"It's not in the government's interests to demoralise the very workforce who are expected to improve our public services," said Mr Prentis.
Transport and General Workers Union general secretary Tony Woodley said progress on public sector investment was being undermined by the job cuts.
'Front-line'
The chancellor based the proposed number of job cuts on an efficiency review headed by Sir Peter Gershon, whose findings he said he accepted in full.
The report argued stretching efficiency programmes could deliver gains of more than �20bn a year by 2007-8.
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"Implementation of the results and recommendations of my review will help ensure that substantial resources are released to implement front-line activities," Sir Peter said. The reforms would also support a modern, professional civil service and wider public sector, he said.
But Jonathan Baume general secretary of the First Division Association, which represents senior civil servants, said axing jobs was a retrograde way of approaching efficiency savings.
The cuts risked "seriously damaging" the ability of the civil service to implement new policies and programmes, Mr Baume said.
"We had hoped that focusing on crude numbers-cutting was an approach abandoned 20 years ago."
Chairman of the Audit Commission, and member of the efficiency review team, James Strachan earlier said many would portray the plans as a "good old fashioned cost-cutting squeeze".
But, he told BBC Radio 4's World at One: "In fact what Gershon is much more focused on is how we deliver government policy.
"On how we take taxpayers' money and convert that into benefits that you or I see when we go to a GPs' surgery or jump on a bus."
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A lot of cuts have already happened particularly for specialist and professional staff - we believe we need more of these people and not less 
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