PCS readies new strike vote against coalition's cuts

The union's executive board said that voting was likely to begin as early as next month as part of their battle plan for the new year.

The union's grievances are many - Lib Dem Treasury Secretary Danny Alexander has demanded that public-sector workers work an extra two years before retiring and pay more in monthly pension contributions, even as payouts shrink to a fraction of their career average rather than final salary.

And more job cuts loom with departmental spending set to plummet by £31 billion between 2014 and 2018, according to the Chancellor's autumn statement - averaging nearly 9 per cent of each department's budget.

PCS general secretary Mark Serwotka said that austerity was clearly not working.

"Instead of forcing public servants to pay the price for his disastrous failure, the Chancellor should be announcing genuine investment in public services and an aggressive push to target the tax dodgers who deprive our economy of tens of billions of pounds a year," Mr Serwotka said.

The union has accused the government of undermining efforts to clamp down on tax avoidance and evasion, believed to cost the public purse around £120bn a year.

The amount nearly doubles Britain's projected debt interest payments for 2014 - the "debt supertanker" cited by George Osborne in 2010 to justify his swingeing public-sector cuts.

Yet HM Revenue and Customs has already seen massive layoffs.

Its workforce was slashed by nearly a third between 2005 and 2010, with another 10,000 staff to go under Mr Osborne's confirmed budget cut of 16.5 per cent.