Strikes highlight importance of key public bodies

A three-day series of walkouts by public bodies starting on the day of the Queen's Speech (8) will highlight the importance of their work, the Public and Commercial Services union says.
The strike action will be across a range of agencies and commissions whose work includes challenging unfair utility prices, ensuring charities spend donors' money appropriately, reducing inequality, and holding organisations to account for how taxpayers' money is spent.
While often small, these bodies provide vital public services that touch all our lives in some way, the union says.
This action forms part of a three-month campaign of strikes and protests by the union's 250,000 public sector members over imposed cuts to pay, pensions and conditions, which this week will also focus attention on the scandal of tax avoidance and evasion by wealthy individuals and companies.
Walkouts tomorrow will include workers at the Equality and Human Rights Commission, whose legal duty to eradicate prejudice and discrimination - a legacy of the Stephen Lawrence murder inquiry - was saved after a government U-turn last month.
They will also include staff at regulatory bodies, such as Ofwat and Ofgem, who work on behalf of consumers to ensure they are treated fairly by utility and energy companies, and the Food Standards Agency that uncovered the horse meat scandal.
In total the one-hour walkouts between 12pm and 1pm on Wednesday (8), Thursday (9) and Friday (10) will include around 1,200 of the union's members in more than 30 different organisations.
PCS general secretary Mark Serwotka said: "The government's U-turn on the equality duty, the horse meat scandal and the cold winter leading to massive utility bills, all highlight the importance of these bodies to our lives.
"These essential public services, often unnoticed and under-praised, should be well resourced and left to do their work, instead of facing cuts and denigration by ministers who shamefully claim they are cutting 'red tape'."


- The full list of bodies involved in the walkouts is:
Wednesday 8 May:
Charity Commission
Equality and Human Rights Commission
Food Standards Agency
Health Service and Parliamentary Ombudsman
Independent Police Complaints Commission
Information Commissioners Office
National Audit Office
National Police Improvement Agency
Office of Fair Trading
Office of Immigration Services Commissioner
Office of Rail Regulation
Ofgem
Ofsted
Ofwat
Security Industry Authority
Thursday 9 May:
Cabinet Office
Electoral Commission
Export Credit Guarantee Department
Houses of Parliament
Independent Living Fund
National Archives
National Savings & Investments
Treasury
Treasury Solicitors
Friday 10 May:
Department for Communities and Local Government HQ
Planning Inspectorate
Homes and Communities Agency
QE11 Conference Centre
Department for Energy and Climate Change HQ
Foreign and Commonwealth Office
Westminster Foundation for Democracy
British Council
Department for International Development HQ
- For information and interview requests contact PCS national press officer Richard Simcox on 020 7801 2747, 07833 978216 or richard@pcs.org.uk
- PCS is the UK's sixth largest union and represents civil and public servants in central government and in parts of government transferred to the private sector. Mark Serwotka is the general secretary and the president is Janice Godrich - on Twitter @janicegodrich