Whitehall walkout: Foreign Office staff strike today as 2,000 jobs hang in the balance

Published at 10:23pm

Civil servants at the Foreign Office are staging a full-day strike today, with picket lines forming outside the department’s Whitehall headquarters, as a long-running dispute over restructuring and job losses comes to a head.

Members of the Public and Commercial Services (PCS) union at the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) are walking out over the “FCDO 2030” overhaul, which is expected to put around 2,000 jobs at risk. The union says the department has refused to rule out compulsory redundancies.

The FCDO is the government department responsible for promoting British interests overseas, bringing together the UK’s diplomatic network and its international development work.

The stoppage is the second of two dates the union announced earlier this month, following a walkout on the afternoon of Thursday 24 September. Picket lines are being mounted outside the FCDO’s main building on King Charles Street in Whitehall and at Abercrombie House in East Kilbride.

Today’s date was deliberately chosen to clash with an appearance by the new Foreign Secretary, Ed Miliband, at the Labour Party conference in Liverpool — a move designed to pile pressure on ministers at a politically awkward moment.

At the heart of the row is the FCDO 2030 programme, the department’s blueprint for reshaping how it operates in the face of tight budgets. PCS accuses department bosses of pressing ahead without meaningful consultation, saying the union has yet to see a business case for the changes, a workforce plan or an equality impact assessment.

The union is calling for the restructure to be paused until that information is shared and genuine talks can take place. Its demands also include a firm guarantee of no compulsory redundancies, protection for staff on fixed-term contracts and inward loans, and a return to the previous pay system in place of performance-related pay.

The shake-up is the department’s answer to the 2025 Spending Review, which left it facing real-terms budget cuts averaging 8.3 per cent a year between 2025-26 and 2028-29.

Today’s strike is the latest escalation in a dispute that has already seen members take five days of action in July and a further two days in August, alongside continuing action short of a strike. The union says the fresh walkouts are needed to demonstrate members’ resolve and increase pressure on the department to engage with its concerns.

An FCDO spokesperson described FCDO 2030 as a strategic transformation that would “redefine” how the department delivers for the UK in an “increasingly complex and volatile” world. “We respect the right of PCS members to take strike action and remain open to further talks,” they said, adding that consultation had been under way since the autumn and that contingency plans were in place to minimise disruption.

For Londoners, the most visible sign of the dispute will be the picket line outside the King Charles Street building in the heart of Whitehall. The stoppage lands during a busy spell for the capital’s politics, with the City of London’s Lord Mayor race also hitting the headlines this week.

What happens next is likely to depend on whether ministers re-engage with the union’s demands. The department insists it remains open to talks, but with no agreement in sight, further industrial action has not been ruled out. The walkout also adds to a testing period for the Government in the capital, where London councils are separately demanding a fairer share as mayors are handed tourist tax powers.

The strike comes at a moment of change at the top of the department: Lindy Cameron was appointed earlier this month as its first female permanent secretary.