George Osborne's autumn statement will be delivered, it appears, amid an unprecedented walkout by vast swathes of the government workforce over pensions and pay.

In addition to the professional managers and upper grades of the civil service, represented by Prospect and the FDA (see Whitehall B), Mark Serwotka will once again lead the blue-collar line of the Public and Commercial Services union (PCS) following the co-ordinated walkout with the teachers and lecturers unions on 30 June. By the end of September, before this autumn of discontent has had chance to ferment, some 720 outsourced back-office IT staff, variously engaged with processing driving licences and family tax benefits, will have begun industrial action.