This year's Civil Service People Survey will enable half a million employees to share their experiences and views on a range of issues. Many will no doubt seize the chance to comment on the impact of government spending cuts in their workplaces.

Prospect is urging members to respond to the survey and make clear the effect that government policies are having on their standard of living, today and in the future.

The survey, which aims to measure ‘employee engagement’, is running from 19 September to 21 October. It covers 98 central government departments, executive agencies, non-ministerial departments and Crown non-departmental public bodies.

Most of the questionnaire remains the same as in previous years, to allow trends to be tracked. But this year employees in some departments are being invited to fill in a section on well-being, based on pilot questions from the Office for National Statistics study to measure well-being.

A new section will also explore the effectiveness of action planning at a local level, in response to survey feedback.

The civil service unions are backing the survey and say they regard it as "the most effective way of measuring attitudes and experiences of all civil servants on an annual basis."