Civil service

Prospect has more than 34,000 members working in the civil service, agencies and other non-departmental public bodies.

You may be a production engineer or a vet, a procurement expert or a scientist. You have the specialist skills to deliver a quality service to the public, working for any one of more than 120 government bodies.

You are very probably one of the 34,000 professionals in the civil service sector of Prospect. Over more than 90 years we have developed unique expertise at looking after the interests of specialists .

Prospect members are spread across a large number of government departments (23), executive agencies and trading funds (37) and non-departmental public bodies (57). Our members provide public bodies with the expertise that enables them to carry out essential work in areas such as food safety, ship design, health and safety inspection, prisoner rehabilitation, preservation of manuscripts, animal health – the list is almost endless.

Right now, professionals in public service face an unparalleled series of challenges across virtually the whole range of their pay and conditions:

• jobs in departments and agencies are being cut by 15% over the two years to 2013
• pay has been cut by 9.5% in real terms thanks to a two-year pay freeze. And with a 1% curb on public sector pay for the next two years, things look just as challenging for 2012-14
• pensions are being radically overhauled for the second time in five years, with an average 3.2% increase in contributions imposed on staff.

At the same time a sweeping programme of organisational change has been launched across government. Several agencies and NDPBs have been closed, others have merged and still more face radical changes to their structure.

Prospect is the recognised union for representing specialist and professional staff in the UK government and in the devolved governments of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. It is consulted by employers whenever they propose changes to our members’ terms and conditions, or the way their work is carried out.

Through our branch and section structure we can represent members locally with line management or nationally with senior managers and chief executives. In the event that you have a personal problem – for example, a grievance or health and safety issue – we will be there for you. And if it’s a national issue like the annual pay rise or a redundancy agreement, Prospect’s civil service sector will negotiate directly with the employer on your behalf.