FCDO restructure – Bargaining demands and Indicative ballot

PCS is running an indicative online ballot of all members in FCDO and Wilton Park with a deadline of 2pm on Friday 9 January.

Members are asked to tell us if you support our bargaining demands, and if you are prepared to take industrial action.

While some progress has been made in dispute talks between PCS and FCDO, the department is still failing to consult PCS meaningfully on a range of key issues. 

Full details are in the Members' Briefing issued on 22 December.

At our dispute meeting with FCDO on 18 December, your PCS representatives again asked FCDO to pause the restructure until reviews into the work of the FCDO are completed and the organisation redesigned, based on those reviews. We said that PCS would pause our campaign opposing the job cuts in response. However, FCDO would not agree. Unfortunately, this gives us no choice but to press ahead with an indicative ballot on industrial action.

Ballot - questions and link

The link to the online ballot is in the Members' Briefing and in the email sent on 22 December.

You will need your membership number to vote. Your membership number can be found in the email. All membership numbers begin with P followed by 7 digits.

Please vote by 2pm on Friday 9 January

All votes will be anonymised by the scrutineer (a PCS full-time officer) and your vote will be confidential.

Bargaining demands

We ask you to support the following demands:

  1. No to job cuts
  2. No compulsory redundancies
  3. An immediate pause to the restructure until meaningful consultation has taken place. Meaningful consultation includes: PCS have been given a business case/rationale to support the job cut programme; a workforce plan; an EIA for the whole restructure, and an EIA for the restructure on the SCS (including the process and outcomes applied to SCS 3 and SCS 2); a skills audit; consultation on all reviews currently proposed or underway which include the review of work following ODA cuts, review of the Overseas Network and the National Security Review
  4. No early ending of fixed term appointments (FTAs) and inward loans
  5. End performance pay and revert to the pay system which existed before the implementation of the 2025/2026 pay award.
Ballot questions

We are recommending that you vote yes to three questions:

  1. Do you support these bargaining demands?
  2. To achieve these demands, are you prepared to take action short of a strike?
  3. To achieve these demands, are you prepared to take strike action?