A union has branded further civil service job cuts at an office in Bury St Edmunds as 'the epitome of cynicism and callousness'.

The Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) launched a voluntary redundancy scheme for staff at 13 sites on Tuesday, November 8.

One of the offices affected is St Andrew's House in Bury St Edmunds, where 20 jobs are at risk.

The announcement came a matter of hours after the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS) national strike ballot over pay, pensions, jobs and redundancy terms closed.

A DWP spokesman said: "This is not a plan to reduce our headcount - where possible, colleagues in offices due to close are being offered opportunities to be redeployed to a nearby site or retrained into a new role in DWP or another government department.

"We are making every effort to fully support our staff through this process, including offering some affected staff the option of considering voluntary redundancy if they wish, but our priority is for staff to remain in the Department where they can."

They added that staff were being supported with regular one-to-ones with line managers and additional help with CVs and job applications, but if an alternative role was found for a member of staff, voluntary redundancy may not be an option.

PCS general secretary Mark Serwotka said: "To delay this announcement until our strike ballot has closed is the epitome of cynicism and callousness.

"The Government may have binned its headline plans to scrap 91,000 jobs. It's now trying to impose them by stealth."

Mr Serwotka added: "We'll continue to fight these unnecessary office closures at a time when our public services are already over-stretched and we need more civil servants, not less.

"We'll also fight for better redundancy terms for our members as the DWP has refused to commit to the terms of the 2016 - a cynical move that could cost our members thousands of pounds."

The results of the PCS national strike ballot are expected to be announced on Thursday, November 10.