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Special pay conferences of the two major civil service unions, the CPSA and the SCPS, agreed last week to go for a 1981 claim ranging from 15%-19%.

• The other civil service unions such as the Inland Revenue staff and the IPCS are likely to follow suit.

The key question to be resolved before the April 1 review date, however, is what action the union leaders are prepared to call to make the claim stick.

The Tories have already spelt out that they are not even bothering to reveal the findings of the Pay Research Unit this year (PRU is the comparability body which decides on civil service pay claims each year).

Thatcher has clearly indicated that 6% will be the absolute maximum throughout the public sector.

Against this background the union leaderships have been desperately clinging to PRU in the face of growing pressure from the membership to recognise that PRU is dead and that special pay conferences should be convened annually to decide on a claim put forward by the rank and file.

At the key CPSA special conference on Thursday Ken Thomas and the 'Moderate' group-dominated NEC just managed to defeat a move to break with PRU by 87,000 votes to 83,000.

Right wing President Kate Losinska then stage-managed a debate on this year's claim to ensure that 15% with £10 underpinning got through-despite demands for speaking rights from delegates from branches with motions demanding 20% with £20 underpinning.

Little serious debate on the conduct of this year's campaign allowed, though the strategy will clearly be one of odd one-day strikes and longer action in computer centres (with membership levies to pay the sections called out).

With the annual elections coming up in May it is vital that the left (in the CPSA in particular) fight to expose the kind of craven leadership that has dogged the civil service unions during a. year in which cuts, victimisations and the threat of new technology have combined to hit the low-paid clerical staff most of all.