The professionals’ union Prospect said that current policies on pay, jobs and privatisation are alienating the very professionals government relies on to deliver key services to the public like road safety, military logistics, the fight against crime, food science and environmental protection.

The union’s Civil Service Sector Executive issued the warning after reviewing potential industrial disputes affecting professionals in eight departments, agencies and non-departmental public bodies. They include the Ministry of Defence and the Vehicle and Operator Services Agency, where industrial action ballots are now underway, the Highways Agency, HM Prison Service, the Forensic Science Service and the Natural Environment Research Council.

Prospect branches in five of these areas are fighting pay offers that would mean real terms pay cuts to their standard of living (MOD, HMPS, VOSA, HA, NERC). Two are preparing to launch new anti-privatisation campaigns (FSS, VOSA) as reviews of their status come to a head.

Pay offers by each employer, worth less than 3 per cent for the most experienced staff, are dictated by the Treasury. The position is made worse by the Treasury’s refusal to fund the cost of equal pay claims or machinery of government changes, which then have to be financed out of the money available for a cost of living increase.

Assistant General Secretary Dai Hudd said: "The Chancellor’s arbitrary ceiling is raising tensions right across the service. It has angered specialists who can find comparable work in the private sector at much higher rates than the public sector. If these policies are not changed soon, the civil service will experience a brain drain in its most vital areas of expertise."

The current disputes are all over offers due for 2006, which are running many months late. Hudd warned that continued enforcement of the 2% limit in 2007 would be "the last straw for many professionals, provoking widespread industrial action by skilled workers who have not taken industrial action in 25 years."