Charity Commission staff are set to strike next week after union members from across the civil service voted in favour of industrial action.

Members of the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS) have voted in favour of a 48 hour strike on 8 and 9 March following a dispute over redundancy terms.

PCS is then promising further strikes each week for the rest of March, in protest at “unilateral” changes which it says will lead to staff losing “a third of their entitlements”.

Approximately 60 per cent of the Commission’s staff are members of the PCS, which balloted approximately 270,000 public servants across the public sector as a whole.

Two-thirds of those voting backed strike action while 81 per cent supported an overtime ban.

Mark Serwotka, PCS general secretary, said: “With civil and public service jobs increasingly at risk, this is a cynical attempt to cut jobs on the cheap which will ultimately damage the services we all rely on.

“The government needs to recognise the depth of anger which has been demonstrated by this ballot result and find the political will to negotiate a settlement that avoids a sustained campaign of industrial action.”