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Budget fails to back public servants and seeks to deliver Brexit on the cheap, says FDA
Responding to Chancellor Philip Hammond's Spring Budget 2017, FDA Assistant General Secretary Naomi Cooke says: "The Chancellor says he wants to prepare Britain for a brighter future outside the EU but has failed to equip the public servants tasked with delivering it.
"In fact, Brexit, the biggest economic event facing the UK, hardly got a mention. No additional resources for departments looking into the eye of the storm and no much needed relief for the hundreds of thousands of civil servants who will see the value of their pay packets continue to fall.
"Civil servants on the front line of the UK's exit from the EU have already seen a real terms cut in pay of more than 20% and higher inflation forecasts for the next two years will mean that many civil servants will be more than 25% worse off, despite a government proclaiming a priority to protect living standards.
"The Chancellor lauded HMRC for collecting an extra £140bn since 2010 and tasked them with collecting an additional £820m by 2020 on top of a challenging Brexit in-tray, yet the department will continue to see its own budget cut by 17%.
"The Government has once again failed to recognise the challenge that the civil service is facing and failed to provide the additional resources needed to deliver a successful Brexit for Britain.
"Civil servants and the civil service cannot continue to be taken for granted in this way."
Notes for editors
- The FDA is the trade union for the UK's senior public servants and professionals at grade HEO and above. FDA membership includes more than 18,000 senior civil servants, diplomats, Government policy advisors, prosecutors, tax professionals, economists, solicitors and other professionals working across Government and the NHS.
- 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".
- The FDA can be found on Twitter @FDA_union and at www.fda.org.uk.
- For further information contact:
- Tommy Newell, Communications Officer, tel: 020 7401 5555 or 07738 729 145.
