Diana Johnson – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Diana Johnson on 2015-12-14.

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, which trades union groups have received (a) funding and (b) other support from his Department in each of the last five years.

Mr David Lidington

There are three trade unions with agreed rights to represent employees in the FCO/FCO Services:

Public and Commercial Services (PCS): Public and Commercial Services Union

First Division Association (FDA): known as the Diplomatic Service Association (DSA) a section of the FDA

Prospect: representing technical employees and other specialists.

In compliance with the Facility Time Framework the FCO submits Quarterly Returns to the Cabinet Office. The Cabinet Office publish the statistics annually, listing the individual departments.

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/418380/Annex_A_-_Facility_Time_Figures_Q1_2014-Q4_2014_Overall.ods’

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) does not make any payments to trade unions in the UK. Members of staff who belong to a trade union pay their own subscriptions, which are either deducted from their salaries and paid to the relevant union or paid directly by the staff in the form of direct debits. The FCO provides office facilities to its union representatives and meets day-to-day running costs within the rules of public expenditure, set out in FCO guidance. The details of the cost of facilities provided over the last five years are not held centrally and to provide these would incur disproportionate cost. In terms of support provided to the trade unions overseas, this information is not held centrally. Collating it would mean contacting all of our posts overseas, which would incur disproportionate cost.