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Unions criticise Johnson's ‘anti-trade-union’ plans to test civil servants every five years

BORIS JOHNSON and his team were accused today of flaunting their “anti-trade-union mentality” with plans that would include making civil servants sit tests every five years.

Civil-Service union PCS vowed to “strenuously resist” the threat to require government workers to pass exams to prove their competence.

General secretary Mark Serwotka argued that the Civil Service’s “major problem” over the past decade of Conservative rule has been “under-investment, real-terms pay cuts and poor government policy.”

He said: “Civil servants work tirelessly to make the machinery of government work for the public.

“However, when you shrink the Civil Service by over 18 per cent since 2010, you are not going to be able to deliver the same level of service.”

Policy consultant Rachel Wolf, who helped draw-up the Tories’ general election manifesto, has claimed that civil servants are “woefully unprepared” for the sweeping reforms that Mr Johnson is keen to push through.

She said that reported plans for merging, creating or abolishing departments are just a “tiny fraction” of the “seismic” changes set to be implemented, beginning this year after Britain leaves the European Union.

The shake-up will include ending the “merry-go-round” of officials changing jobs every 18 months, she said.

Ms Wolf claimed that anyone staying in the same job for longer than 18 months is currently seen as having “stalled,” in a culture that ensures “everyone rises to their position of incompetence.”

Dave Penman, general secretary of the FDA, which represents senior civil servants, insisted those working in the Civil Service are not resistant to change and appointments are made on merit.

He also criticised a “decade of pay stagnation” and warned against “another round of reform for reform's sake.”

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