Almost 2,000 civil servants at the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office face the risk of redundancy, with the biggest union for government workers vowing to fight the cuts.
The PCS union, which has about 200,000 members, said it had been told that 1,885 jobs at the second highest level, known as delegated grades, were “at risk”, in addition to redundancy notices that have already been issued to some senior civil servants.
The union linked the cuts to the government’s decision to reduce the foreign aid budget and accused the department of failing to follow civil service protocol by putting a number on job cuts before consulting.
The Foreign Office (FCDO) said it was reducing its headcount to make the department more agile, after its permanent secretary, Olly Robbins, said earlier in the year that the department planned to reduce the size of its workforce by up to 25% as part of wider civil service changes.
The Cabinet Office has previously announced plans to lose tens of thousands of roles in the civil service, but most attempted cuts so far have been through not replacing staff and voluntary, rather than compulsory, redundancy programmes.
The 1,885 jobs “at risk” at delegated grades come at the same time as the FCDO has been issuing redundancy notices to director generals who have been unsuccessful in securing a role in a newly restructured department. Their last day of service will be at the beginning of December.
The PCS said it had “serious concerns” about how the reduction in director general posts has been handled, saying employers were supposed to go through a process called a redundancy mitigation review with the Cabinet Office and trade unions, offering voluntary redundancy before compulsory redundancy notices were issued. It said this did not happen because the voluntary programme closed before the restructure started.
Fran Heathcote, the PCS general secretary, said: “We will strongly resist the FCDO’s plans to slash its UK-based workforce by up to 30%.
“Our members have seen no justification for these cuts and have yet to be told what work has been deemed disposable by management. To add insult to injury, the government’s recent cuts to the overseas aid budget will not only lead to job losses and a loss of valuable expertise, but could cost hundreds of thousands of lives overseas.
“If the FCDO is serious about delivering a safe, secure and prosperous Britain and wider world, it needs to listen to its own workers’ concerns about its job cuts programme.”
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An FCDO spokesperson told Civil Service World: “The FCDO is embarking on a series of changes over the next five years. This will include a headcount reduction as we move towards a slimmer, more agile workforce.
“This is a key step in our reform programme to ensure that the FCDO is more open, more strategic and more technologically enabled, to deliver maximum security and growth for the British people.”
