CIVIL servants meet in Bishop Auckland tonight to protest against plans to centralise benefit processing.
The Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS) fears County Durham will be left without a single benefit office under Government proposals announced last September - and that 10,000 civil service jobs will be lost in the region.
A PCS spokesman said: "Management claims that telephones and computers will enable the claims to be dealt with more speedily. We refute this and point out that often the most needy and vulnerable do not necessarily have access to either of these methods."
The meeting is at the Queen's Head in the town at 6.30pm.
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