The FDA, the trade union for senior civil servants, has made a strong attack on the integrity of the former Labour cabinet and called on new ministers and MPs to display "personal and moral integrity".
In a speech this morning to the union's annual conference, FDA general secretary Jonathan Baume was scathing about the former government, saying new ministers should begin to display the personal and moral integrity "that was so obviously lacking in the previous parliament, even within the Cabinet".
He said rebuilding trust in politics was not a task that can be delegated to senior civil servants. He also paid tribute to the planning by civil servants that led to the smooth handover to the new coalition government.
Baume did not name specific members of the former Cabinet, but his attack follows the revelation yesterday that senior civil servants were under increasing pressure from ministers in the dying months of the Labour government to carry out expensive orders that they disagreed with and responded by submitting an unprecedented number of formal protests in the run-up to the general election.
In his speech, Baume painted a gloomy picture of the prospects facing the senior civil service, which include a possible cut of 20% in the service, a possible pay freeze, and reviews of pay and pensions. He said if there are cuts in the pay of senior civil servants, then a similar approach should be taken across the whole public sector. "It is not fair to single out the civil service alone," he told delegates.
Baume's comments came as the Public and Commercial Services union, which is holding its three-day annual conference in Brighton this week, called for demands for a "far-reaching" campaign to defend jobs, pay, pensions and public services.
Hostility between the PCS and the FDA
The PCS called for co-ordinating action among public sector unions, but there is no sign of any lessening in the traditional hostility between the PCS and the FDA. Baume described the PCS as "dysfunctional" at a national level and said the union's victory in its court case against plans to cut redundancy pay for civil servants could prove to be a "major own goal". He said that although the result meant some members of the civil service would end up with better terms, "that will be paid for by significantly reducing the benefits payable to the vast majority of other members".
He warned against "mass confrontation" with the government, saying it could result in a descent "towards the public sector's equivalent of the miners' strike" and called instead for all involved to work through the "testing times ahead" for civil and public services.
The two civil service unions may be further hampered in their fight against government cuts by their own financial positions. Both the FDA and the PCS ran up large deficits last year. The FDA, which has an income of £2.8m from its membership subscriptions, saw a deficit of £290,633, while the PCS, which has an income of £30.8m from subscriptions, saw an operating loss of £897,000.
From Bubb's Blog
From Whitehall Watch
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