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The coalition government must negotiate with civil service trade unions if it wants to amend the sector's redundancy scheme, as part of ministers' cost-saving drive, a new High Court judgement on the issue implies. High Court judge, Mr Justice Sales, last week quashed an amendment to the civil service redundancy scheme, which the previous government claimed was effective from 1 April, and would have allowed ministers to slash redundancy terms for any staff who left their post voluntarily. It follows an earlier, successful High Court appeal by the Public and Commercial Services (PCS) union, which represents civil servants, which blocked the former government's plans to reduce the amount it must pay to staff made compulsorily redundant as part of Whitehall's ongoing jobs cull. In effect, the latest judgement forces ministers from the coalition – who have initiated a full review of the Civil Service Compensation Scheme – around the negotiating table to discuss future changes to redundancy packages detrimental to staff, because it deems the failure of the previous government to agree new terms and conditions with the PCS as illegal. The PCS described the latest development in the long-running compensation saga as ‘the final blow to the Government's unlawful cuts to civil service redundancy pay'. PCS leaders maintained the proposed changes to the compensation scheme would make it easier and cheaper to cut tens of thousands of civil service jobs. Richard Arthur, head of trade union law at Thomson Solicitors, who acted for the PCS, said: ‘With the exception of some favourable, age-related changes, all the benefits in the new scheme are quashed and all the old ones are protected.' Hugh Lanning, PCS deputy general secretary, added: ‘This was a grossly unfair attempt by the Government to rip up the rights of its own workforce. The new administration now has a golden opportunity to show it is truly committed to consultation and negotiation, by getting around the table with us to agree a new scheme which is fair, and protects the rights of civil servants.' But the Cabinet Office immediately sounded a warning to the PCS that, in any future negotiations, it would seek new arrangements to ease the cost of staff redundancies. A spokesman said: ‘We are disappointed by today's decision and the Government will announce its next steps after it has considered the terms of this final judgement. ‘We are committed to reforming the Civil Service Compensation Scheme, which is expensive, to bring it into line with practice in the private sector.'

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WHITEHALL

Ruling will force ministers back to negotiating table

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