9 October 2007 - Government priorities must match resources

The Government must learn from mistakes made over recent years and ensure that there is a clear match between its priorities and the allocated resources, the FDA said today in response to the Chancellor's Comprehensive Spending Review announcement. The FDA is the union for senior public sector managers and professionals.

FDA General Secretary Jonathan Baume said: "Today's announcement heralds a further difficult three-year period for civil service departments with real-terms cuts to administration budgets of 5% each year. It comes on the back of the £20 billion-plus efficiency savings and the net cutting of 70,000 posts over the previous Spending Review period.

"While we welcome the decision to scrap imposed targets for cutting jobs to achieve efficiency savings, no one should underestimate the difficulties departments will face. When budgets are reduced in the way that the Chancellor has announced, jobs inevitably have to be axed.

"The FDA recognises that every Government has the right to determine its spending plans, but it is imperative that lessons must be learned from the last spending round. There must be a clear match between the Government's priorities and the resources made available to departments.

"The Chancellor's further announcement of a 2% cap on public sector pay bills severely undermines the role of the independent pay review bodies, which determine pay levels for many key public sector workers. This limit is especially unwelcome and unwarranted in the light of recent research that shows no link between public sector pay increases and inflation in the wider economy. There are more sophisticated levers that the Government can pull to both motivate public sector staff and deliver the required gains in efficiency and productivity." ###

Notes for Editors
1. The FDA is the trade union and professional body representing 17,000 of the UK’s senior civil and public servants. Our members include policy advisors, senior managers, tax inspectors, economists, statisticians, accountants, special advisers, government lawyers, diplomats, crown prosecutors and NHS managers.
2. The FDA (formerly the First Division Association) should be referred to simply as "The FDA" and can be described as "the senior public servants’ union".
3. For further information contact: