By Ollie Stone-Lee BBC News Online political staff

Chancellor Gordon Brown's plans to cut 84,000 civil service jobs overshadowed his plans to move thousands of civil servants out of London and the south-east of England.

Newcastle is part of the lobbying drive

The relocation plans were first outlined in the government's Lyons review published in March.

Since then, councils, regional development agencies and MPs have been preparing their pitches to get those jobs to their areas.

And Mr Brown's spending review earlier this month was the starting gun for months of intense lobbying.

Jobs pitch

Greg Stone, executive member for development and regeneration on Newcastle City Council, said he would be "bending the ear" of minister Lord Rooker on his visit to the city this week.

"There's a lot of competition for these jobs and we want to press our case," Councillor Stone, a Liberal Democrat, told BBC News Online.

Brown has set the path out of London

The persuasion drive could see ministers and top Whitehall officials deluged with invitations for visits and briefings about each area's assets.

The inevitable power point presentation to promote Stafford's case is already ready, according to the town's MP, David Kidney.

He said the message from the Lyons review was that the jobs were "up for grabs" for the regions.

"There's been a lot of lobbying by a lot of MPs, both on the record and also behind the scenes by groups of MPs pushing their areas," said Mr Kidney.

Business case

York MP Hugh Bayley believes the campaign to get the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and Ministry of Defence to move jobs to the city and its surrounding area is on the verge of paying off.

His first tactic was to get in early in pushing Lyons to say the Whitehall jobs ought to go to the regions best suited to them, not necessarily to the most deprived areas.

"The second thing was to encourage civil service managers in York to extol the virtues of their moves to York," he said.

This must be the fourth or fifth time since 1960 they have done this but have eventually backed down after trade union pressure Prof Colin Talbot on regional pay

It is not just politicians and civil servants acting as area advocates.

Chris Charlton, head of the Nottingham Office for international property consultants FPDSavills, said local councils were enlisting business help for lobbying government.

"They are trying to promote Nottingham as a place to come and work, as the principal town in the East Midlands," he said.

Bias fears

With a general election approaching, the Lyons review says senior civil servants must give robust advice to make sure ministers' relocation decisions do not get mixed up with their constituency interests.

Nottingham University's Professor Colin Talbot warns against the dangers of political bias.

Between 1979 and 1992, there was a strong correlation between Conservative marginal constituencies and new locations for civil service jobs, he says.

Welsh nationalists have said it was a "coincidence" the Royal Mint was moved to South Wales after Plaid Cymru made big inroads against Labour in the 1967 Rhondda West by-election.

Cuts at job centres have already provoked union pickets

But ex-Treasury mandarin Sir Peter Kemp said he had never heard of such tactics.

"Frankly, I'm not sure it would be a good political move or not. They might not be best pleased," he said, warning that some moves could cause local resentment of London high flyers bagging plum housing.

Sir Peter suggested it was not very difficult to persuade civil servants to leave London if terms were reasonable.

"Civil service unions always make a bit of a scene about these removals," he told BBC News Online. "In fact, a lot of civil servants are actually very happy to go or take retirement."

Whitehall resistance?

But top civil servants would still need to stay close to their ministers, he said - something Harold Wilson recognised when banning Barbara Castle from having a private office in Westminster away from the rest of her transport department in London Bridge.

Sir Peter was midwife to the last great push to the regions when he helped create new government agencies.

The scale of the latest plans suggests the many previous drives have not created a decisive shift away from the capital.

Ex-Tory Cabinet minister Lord Fowler said relocation offered extremely good quality and value.

But citing resistance in Whitehall and a certain lack of political will, he admitted: "I'm not sure we made as much progress as we could have done in the Thatcher years."

Pay concerns

The Tories doubt the chancellor can deliver on his savings promises now and have commissioned their own review on cutting government waste, the latest part of which was published on Wednesday.

Nottingham University's Professor Talbot said establishing regional pay was a key way to cut costs through moving departments.

"This must be the fourth or fifth time since 1960 they have done this but have eventually backed down after trade union pressure," he said.

A spokesman for the Public and Commercial Services union said the process should not be used to drive down pay rates, especially when there was no regional wage market established in Britain.

The civil service unions, already flexing their muscles about planned job cuts, say they do not oppose relocation if it is voluntary and for good business reasons, rather than simple penny-pinching.

It all leaves ministers with a tough tightrope to walk as city takes on city in the drive to take the men and women from the ministry out of Whitehall.