CIVIL servants ran a foodbank outside a Tory minister’s office last night to highlight “poverty pay” received by outsourced workers in his department.

Business Minister Greg Clark was served with the warning as furious staff took drastic measures to ensure their colleagues can eat over the weekend.

A source from the Public and Commercial Services (PCS) union told the Morning Star that there are foodbanks “on every floor” inside the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS).

They said there had been a “massive response — the boxes were full within an hour.”

The emergency measures come just months after outsourcing giant ISS took over a £49 million facilities management contract at BEIS.

The privateer has claimed that ministers want the company to pay workers below the London living wage of £10.55 per hour.

The contract has been dogged by protests and strikes from the start, with cleaners, caterers, receptionists and security guards walking out.

ISS is accused of failing to pay workers on time or underpaying them.

The situation has seen some staff unable to afford the bus fare for commuting to work, the source said.

More than 500 workers have been affected by the bungled payments and Labour shadow business secretary Rebecca Long Bailey has had to call on her Tory counterpart to intervene.

The union is now in “daily crisis talks with BEIS management,” according to our source.

As well as foodbanks, PCS members have raised over £3,000 in an online fundraiser to set up a hardship fund for striking workers.

They said in a statement: “These workers are on poverty pay — paid below what the independent Living Wage Foundation calculates you need to earn to live in London — and deserve a pay rise. 

“BEIS and their cut-price contractors … have refused to meet even this first of our demands. 

PCS general secrerary Mark Serwotka said: “It is absolutely shocking that our members are being forced to use foodbanks because of ISS’s mismanagement of the contract. 

“This underlines why all contracted out services in BEIS and other government departments must be brought back in house as a matter of urgency.”

ISS was approached for comment.