Government plan to cut severance pay for civil servants 'adds insult to injury', union says

The Conservative government has sparked a new row with plans to cut severance pay for civil servants while aiming to cut 91,000 jobs in Whitehall.

It comes as the leadership candidate Tory Rishi Sunak has pledged to cut civil service jobs as part of a 'bloated' state 'reshuffle' that would require senior civil servants to spend a year working outside of Whitehall. p>

The FDA union - which represents senior officials - described Sunak's proposal as "ill-thought-out rhetoric that does not survive the first hour of scrutiny".