Natural England and Environment Agency staff strike in Worthing

Union members across the country walked out in a dispute over pay, job losses and redundancy terms. Thousands of workers from the Met Office, Health and Safety Executive, Intellectual Property Office, Animal and Plant Health Agency, Natural England and UK Research and Innovation took part.

As well as strike action, workers have been taking part in continuous action ‘short of a strike’ since March 16. This includes only working contracted hours and an overtime ban.

In March, there was a picket line of more than 20 people at Guildbourne House in Chatsworth Road, Worthing, from 8.30am until 11am.

Mike Clancy, general secretary of Prospect, said: "Our members in Natural England and the rest of the public sector have seen their incomes decline by up to 26 per cent over the past 13 years and their work taken for granted – they have had enough.

“Bills are rocketing and pay is falling ever further behind the private sector, leaving our members with no option but to take industrial action.

“We will continue our campaign until the government comes up with a meaningful offer. If it doesn’t do so soon, we may be left with no civil service to protect.”

Natural England is an important employer in Worthing and Sussex and performs a significant public service, providing an important public service; promoting nature conservation; enhancing the landscape and contributing to social and economic wellbeing, through safe-guarding the natural environment.

Today’s strike was the largest industrial action Prospect members have taken ‘in more than a decade’, the union said.

Prospect represents tens of thousands of specialist, technical, professional, managerial and scientific staff in the Civil Service.

A Natural England spokesperson said: “On days where industrial action takes place, we have plans in place to minimise any disruption to our critical activities and reduce impacts on our customers and colleagues.

“Natural England is constrained by the public sector pay rules and can only make pay awards within the limits set by the treasury.”

Natural England said it has business continuity plans and National Nature Reserve emergency plans in place for when industrial action takes place. This is to minimize disruption and ensure the health, safety and wellbeing of our people, the general public and the livestock held on its national nature reserves.

The Government department said it has already committed to a pay reform ‘in order to ensure our staff are fairly rewarded for the work they do’.

Natural England said it has always ‘paid our staff the maximum’ allowed under government pay guidance, while also ‘reflecting the individual performance of employees’, adding: “We are working closely with our trade unions on pay reform, and will continue to do so.”

As a result of the industrial action, the Met Office said its services may be affected.

A spokesperson said: “The Met Office has detailed plans to minimise disruption, maintain our most critical safety of life services and get our services back to normal as soon as possible so that people can make better decisions to stay safe.

“During the period of strike action, it will not be possible for us to maintain the full range of our operational services. Therefore, we will be looking to prioritise services critical to safety of life, such as our national severe weather warning services, several services to aviation and marine and services to defence colleagues. Elsewhere, services will unfortunately be reduced, delayed, or will be suspended.

“It is expected that our automated data services, such as those through our website and app will continue, although some of the text or presented elements of the forecast may not be available.

“This is a national dispute across several civil and public service agencies. We continue to engage with Prospect to resolve this dispute and deliver a fair pay deal for our people.”

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