Enough is enough according to delegates at the recent Prospect Conference, hosted at Torquay's Riviera International Conference Centre.

The delegates were angry over pay curbs for civil servants - out of 153 motions at the civil service sector union's biennial national conference, the issue of apparent unfairness and discrimination of government policy on pay provoked the most passion from the 400 delegates present.

The conference took place over three days and provoked bitter criticisms, culminating in an emergency motion pledging the union to ballot on industrial action in the event of any final offer or imposed award failing to give a minimum two per cent consolidated increase to all grades.

The conference heard the civil service has been consistently singled out for the most unfair treatment of any public service.

And delegates were told that the Government risked committing political suicide by mistreating public sector workers and stating they are to blame for inflationary pressure in the UK's economy.

Delegates also pledged to campaign against three-year settlements that do not contain a guarantee to inflation proof increases in future years to the retail price index.

"Three-year deals," said David Pugh of the Environment Agency, are not necessarily bad, but have disadvantages if they are not inflation proofed. "Inflation, the credit crunch. Things happen and can leave deals like that worthless. We need such deals to be fully protected."

"We are all taxpayers," said Neil Hope-Collins of the Health and Safety Executive. "We all rely on a good civil service to help run the country. If they are not paid at the going rate, you will not get a decent service.

Public sector pay is important to all of us and we need the support of the union. We are fired up for the fight for fair pay."