Union ‘responding actively at all levels’

An overview of the FDA's work over the past year - contained in the union's 2011 Annual Report - reveals a particularly busy year with it "responding actively at all levels" - nationally with ministers, in individual departments, and right across the UK. The report acknowledges that FDA members are facing some of the most difficult challenges for many years

Jonathan Baume, FDA general secretary, said that the pressures bearing down on senior public servants - job cuts, pay freezes and budget reductions - were "compounded by the threats to pension arrangements". These, he said, arose "from the Government's decision to seek higher contribution rates from 2012 and to reopen, following Lord Hutton's review on pensions, the settlement... we had negotiated for both new and existing members in 2007".

He added: "It is unusual for so many different pressures to be bearing down over such a short timescale."

Read the FDA Annual Report 2011.