STOP KICKING THE HOME OFFICE, SAYS FDA

The leader of the union for senior public servants, Jonathan Baume, will tell politicians and the media to "stop kicking the Home Office" and question whether the department has adequate resources in a GMTV interview to be broadcast on Sunday 21 January. Speaking in advance of his interview with GMTV, FDA general secretary Jonathan Baume said: "Politicians and the media should stop kicking the Home Office. Much of the recent criticism of the Home Office has been simplistic and unfair, and will do nothing to resolve the real issues challenging the department. "The media should fulfill a responsibility to inform the public, not just run after headlines. "Of course government must be held to account, but politicians must acknowledge that the Home Office works in a very difficult context: its priorities are constantly changed; its budget is effectively frozen while demands on the department are increasing; it must work across a multitude of agencies and IT systems; and restructuring and staff cutbacks have increased the pressure on headquarters staff. Civil servants must continue to deliver in this environment, and that is not always easy. Morale is in freefall while the pressures have reached boiling point. "We welcome the Prime Minister's comments on Tuesday that 'the vast majority of people and officials in the Home Office are doing their level best in difficult circumstances'." Baume is clear that no constructive discussion about the performance of the Home Office can take place without addressing the balance of resources and priorities. "Civil servants have nothing to hide. The FDA has welcomed the Home Office inquiry into criminal records which will inevitably bring out all of the facts, and that will inevitably highlight the disparity between the department's priorities and resources. "The Government collectively must ask itself whether it is giving the Home Office the resources necessary for it to deliver the job that needs doing. "The Government must determine its priorities and see them through, keep its nerve and not be distracted by headlines, difficult though that is. Currently it's like watching a game of football at a primary school; a politician or the media kick at an issue, often in a misleading way, and everyone then chases this ball along the pitch, pulling resources away from some previous challenge. "It is important to understand that ministers constantly change their priorities for the department. Under David Blunkett, the priority was asylum-seekers. Under John Reid, it was foreign prisoners and now British nationals committing crimes abroad. But there is very limited resource to fund this work. So once a minister sets a new priority, it is funded by taking resources away from a different priority, which means something else is not being done. That 'something else' is likely to rear its ugly head in the form of a crisis down the line." As an example, Baume offered the Home Office's July 2006 announcement for 8,000 new prison places before any funding had been agreed. "What people did not hear is that those prison places will be partly resourced by stripping £16 million from the budget for immigration and border controls. The Home Office said the £16 million was to be "redirected to the departments' 'core objectives'". Does that mean we should now understand that immigration and border control is not a 'core objective' of the Home Office?" Baume confirmed that the FDA is representing a member who had been suspended pending the inquiry into criminal records. "There should be no rush to judgement on this individual's culpability by either politicians or the media. There can be no presumption of guilt until the ongoing inquiry has established the facts. The suspension itself is a precautionary measure undertaken as standard policy after the individual volunteered information to the inquiry. Should disciplinary procedures be instigated, the FDA will represent the member robustly."