CIVIL SERVICE unions slammed Reform UK’S latest plan to cut civil servant jobs by 68,500 today.

The Public and Commercial Services (PCS) union described them as a “sure-fire way” to reduce efficiency and “load them with the hidden costs of social failure.”

Prospect, which represents specialist, digital, technical and scientific civil servants, dismissed the party’s “latest desperate attempt to generate headlines by treating public servants as a political punchbag.”

East Wiltshire Reform MP Danny Kruger said that his party would cut the number of civil servants by 68,500 if it won the next election.

The plan would cut the salary bill by 17 per cent and save the taxpayer £5.2 billion a year, he told a press conference in Westminster, claiming the cost of resulting redundancies would pay for itself within two years.

“We want people to work for the public interest, and we want the type of people who will be incentivised by the opportunity of performance-related pay, rather than a distant and over-generous pension,” the Tory defector said.

PCS general secretary Fran Heathcote said: “Reducing staffing in the Civil Service is a sure-fire way to reduce efficiency and load the taxpayer with the hidden costs of social failure.

“The people of the UK, and our members, demand a Civil Service that gives value for money and gets the job done properly.

“Reform’s plan in October was to slash 100,000 jobs. Today’s reduced figure is just another wild pledge demonstrating zero understanding of the Civil Service and how it works.”

Prospect general secretary Mike Clancy said: “This is the third Reform policy pledge on slashing civil servants in as many months and the numbers change every time.

“It is clear that they are making up this policy as they go with no real plan, and no consideration of what the impact will be and what vital services will suffer as a result.

“You only have to look at Reform’s utter failure to deliver on their spending promises in local government to see how realistic any of their plans are.

“This is just the latest desperate attempt to generate headlines by treating public servants as a political punchbag, knowing that they are unable to answer back.

“Make no mistake, cuts of the scale being mooted would result in a less effective government that is less able to deliver for the public.”