Further written evidence from the Public
and Commercial Services Union
FOREIGN AND
COMMONWEALTH OFFICE'S
CORPORATE SERVICES
PROGRAMME
The Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS)
is the largest trade union in the civil service with 300,000 members
working in government departments, non departmental public bodies,
agencies and privatised areas. This includes over 1,300 members
employed by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) both in
the UK and overseas.
On 29 May 2009, the FCO Board endorsed a proposal
to roll out a Corporate Services Programme over a three year period
to generate savings for the FCO. One strand of this was the replacement
of 50% of UK based management officers at missions around the
world with locally engaged staff; about 100 posts are slated for
localisation. Management officers are responsible for the day
to day running of the embassy such as estates management, budgetary/financial
control and human resource functions. PCS are concerned that there
were no consultations with Posts or the FCO trade union side (TUS)
prior to the decision, contrary to the spirit of the FCO facilities
agreement which governs the relationship between the TUS and FCO
administration.
Following protests from the TUS, a late consultation
process was hurriedly commenced in August 2009; this finished
in September 2009. But PCS still believes it has received either
no answer or unsatisfactory responses to many of the valid points
raised during the consultation. Nonetheless the FCO is pushing
ahead with implementation in a dogmatic way.
PCS are opposed to the localisation of these
important jobs. We accept the ebb and flow of jobs between UK
based and locally engaged officers has been part of FCO life for
decades. However, in the past, such changes were usually carefully
and individually assessed, the resource consequences identified
and the implications for posts and officers generally well managed.
We believe this has not been the case with the roll out of the
Corporate Services Programme.
The decision to proceed as planned was in our
view flawed from the start. Indeed we cannot recall any previous
examples of the FCO Board taking such an arbitrary and far reaching
decision with so little consultation. That it did so without prior
consultation with the unions adds insult to injury. PCS believes
all aspects of this strand should be thoroughly reviewed. We believe
it was conceived and implemented in haste with too little thought
given to dependencies and consequences.
We are concerned about the impact the decision
will have on officers and families, both as individuals and in
career terms. We fear the consequences, while not yet entirely
clear, will be severe. And that such news comes at a time of enhanced
anxiety over jobs, pay, early retirement/redundancy arrangements
and pensions can only add to the pressure felt by many.
It is also not clear to us, for example, why
the Board decided to compress the programme from five years—as
originally planned—to three years (and for localised management
officer slots to be vacated by March 2011). We have been refused
full access to the business case to HMT. It is likely that these
aspects of the board's decision have caused much of the hardship
for our members in terms of short touring and cancelled postings.
During the consultation, the FCO said exceptions
to localisation would be made on grounds of security, lack of
suitably qualified staff or unacceptable risk of fraud. But it
is clear this has not been adhered to with only cursory and superficial
analysis carried out rather than detailed risk and impact assessments.
We believe the FCO is taking real chances with the integrity of
its overseas operations including the security of FCO staff, families,
information and assets. In the worst cases, national security
could conceivably be endangered.
Equally at risk is the public purse. PCS is
concerned that our ever decreasing numbers of UK staff overseas
might increasingly have to cope with ever more sophisticated and
complex types of fraud particularly if a lot of the FCO resource
functions are outsourced or carried out by non UK nationals.
Localisation of staff is planned in approximately
50 countries in total. Examples of the places included in the
exercise are Kinshasa, Lagos, Tehran, Islamabad and Sana'a.
PCS also believes that in small posts (which
form the majority of UK representation overseas), where multi-hatting
often complicates job descriptions, work now done by UK based
management staff could drift up to already under pressure Deputy
Head of Missions and Heads of Post, need special consideration.
So too those where political or visa problems might prevent rapid
deployment of rapid deployment teams in a crisis (such as Iran)
or where internal instability has resulted in a history of crises,
such as consular evacuations (such as Lebanon). Locally engaged
staff can only do so much, not least because they do not enjoy
diplomatic immunity, as recent events in Tehran regrettably illustrate.
We also question whether the necessary efficiency
savings the Corporate Service Programme has envisaged can be achieved,
especially when the targets have been revised since the process
started. PCS is also concerned about the over reliance on consultants
(costing £4.3 million since October 2008). Our concern is,
when consultants are not tightly managed by persons with a deep
knowledge of broader FCO business needs, that misunderstanding
or misrepresentations can quickly gain credence. We note with
regret the money and effort wasted on PRISM and other expensive
IT programmes that either overran significantly or failed, not
to mention the Collinson Grant initiative. PCS recalls that an
issue in most such cases was an over reliance on external consultants
with insufficient FCO in-house input.
PCS believe management's desire to run the FCO
as a commercial operation is extremely misguided. The global and
often sensitive nature of our business involves exceptional challenges
and particular constraints. British missions and British diplomats
are targeted by terrorists, organised crime and hostile intelligence
services. Work is often done in difficult and dangerous environments.
Threats and risks to lives, assets, careers and reputations—both
corporate and individual—should have been thoroughly assessed
before decisions are taken. We can find little evidence that this
was the case not least as the FCO failed to share key documents
with the unions.
PCS urge the Foreign Affairs Committee to consider
establishing an inquiry to subject this Corporate Services Programme
to rigorous parliamentary scrutiny. We are happy to provide a
more detailed submission of our concerns which we have put to
the FCO administration over the last six months and would welcome
any opportunity to provide oral evidence to the Committee.
22 January 2010
| 
