The FDA’s new President Tony Wallace tells Scott Dobson about never looking back after joining the civil service, and the challenges and opportunities ahead for the FDA.

 

Tony Wallace grew up in Cumbernauld in the west of Scotland. “My father was the President of the Scottish Carpet Workers’ Union – a traditional craft union in Glasgow in the 1960s. Both my parents were involved in the trade union movement, and quite political.”

Originally planning to go on to university, he took a summer job with the Inland Revenue in Cumbernauld. “I had no real dreams of being a civil servant – I’d have liked to have been an astronaut or have played football for Scotland, but you don’t get many astronauts and I had two left feet, so wasn’t much of a footballer either.” 

Joining as a clerical assistant, Wallace says he “never looked back”. Taking the Civil Service Commission exam, he moved to Croydon: “That was the making of me. Leaving home and moving to London, from that point on my career started to kick off.” Wallace also had a stint covering the Highlands and Islands. “I was the Hamish Macbeth, if anyone remembers him, of the Inland Revenue. My turf included Lewis and Harris, places like that. It was a fantastic job”. These days, he is a Customer Compliance Manager in HMRC’s Large Business Office, working with some of the country’s largest businesses, making sure they are complying with their tax obligations.

He joined the Inland Revenue Staff Federation on the day he joined the service, and has been a union member for “every single working day” of his life. He recalls quickly becoming “an extremely young and extremely nervous” union rep. “My very first meeting was a disaster, I felt like I was going to faint, but then I picked myself up and carried on. I believe in trade unionism to my core”. 

As he looks to the challenges ahead, he is quick to stress that he “believes fundamentally” in what the civil service does, and that there is “nothing incompatible about being a trade unionist and a senior civil service leader”. 

With work still to be done as a consequence of EU exit – “looking after the Northern Ireland Protocol… the borders… phytosanitary checks” – and people really struggling with the cost-of-living crisis and rising inflation, Wallace knows that civil servants, as they have been throughout the pandemic, will once again be asked to rise to the challenge. Against that background, he believes it is a mistake to talk about cutting job numbers back to 2016 levels. 

He also criticises ministerial demands for people to return to workplaces, arguing it simply “isn’t in keeping with what the modern world looks like now. Most large banks, accountancy firms, professional organisations are looking at how they can work more flexibly with their people. The civil service should be doing the same.”

His first priority as FDA President, however, is to try to support members who may be struggling – drawing attention to the fact that pay increases in the civil service this year will be in the region of just two to three percent, “on top of depressed pay for the last ten to fifteen years”.

Wallace is also keen that the FDA remains ambitious for the future: “The offer that we are giving to members is something that is attractive to them, but there are still lots of people who could be members. We are effective, we have a voice and we are listened to… why would you not want to be part of that?” 

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Scott Dobson is Communications Officer at the FDA.