It's the public sector that takes the hit from the Chancellor

If anyone has come off worse following the Chancellor Autumn statement this afternoon,it appears to be the public sector.

Besides announcing a 1 per cent pay increase for next year,he also revealed that he will also look at "localised" public sector wage agreements,which in theory could seen those in this part of the country earning less than their counterparts in the south.

Local Labour MP Andrew Gwynne has hit out at the proposal.

In a statement just released he said:

“The Chancellor is wrong to say that there should be legal regional pay differentials. It is clearly unfair for someone who does a job in my constituency to be paid less than someone doing the same job in another region. People in my constituency already suffer from lower than average wages and shouldn't’t have to pay the price for the government’s failed economic policies by having even more money taken out their wage packet.”

The proposal is a large change.Public sector pay has always been calculated on a national basis although there is a London weighting.

The move may be seen as trying to get the public wage bill down and will surely add anger to the picket lines tomorrow.

Meanwhile reading the fine print of the forecasts from the office of budgetary responsibility,it appears that over 300,000 more public sector jobs than originally forecast could be gone by the time we get to 2017.

The OBR reached the figure based on the government's plans for further cuts in public spending, combined with data showing that average pay per head has increased more than it expected in March when it was forecasting 400,000 job losses.Today the figure is 710,000.