Unite, the union representing staff at the Financial Conduct
Authority has today (Monday 13 December) raised grave concerns
about the City regulator’s pay and grading consultation, due to
close in 7 days’ time.
Union members have formally written to the FCA CEO, to express strong staff
anxieties about the regulator’s ability to meet its legal
responsibilities and regulatory functions as a result of this
consultation. Unite has made it clear that the consultation lacks
transparency, withholds key information from the workforce and
has serious equality implications if the changes are imposed as
planned.
Dominic Hook, Unite national officer said: “The Financial Conduct
Authority must step back from the fundamentally flawed pay and
conditions consultation which will deeply impact the workforce
across the regulator. Unite has today written to the CEO, to clearly set out staff
concerns and call for the process to be paused.
“Despite Unite having spent months calling for more information
and for the FCA to have meaningful discussions with its workforce
the management continue to dismiss staff concerns and have thus
far failed to justify these damaging proposals.
“Unite the union will continue to speak up for the regulator’s
employees who the leadership simply dismiss as making ‘noise’.
The dedicated and committed workforce in London and Edinburgh
deserve much better treatment than they are currently
receiving.
“It is not too late for the FCA to resolve this situation and
show their staff that they value their tireless efforts
throughout the last 18 months and their commitment to being the
best possible regulator it can be.”
Key Unite concerns about the current FCA proposals being rushed
through include:
-
Double standards in benchmarking FCA staff and those at
the top of the regulator: While most staff will
see their pay cut by at least 10%, senior executives will see
their pay bands uplifted. Senior FCA staff already receive
significantly higher pay than other regulators at 7.5x median
pay. This compares, for example, to 5.7x at Ofcom and 3.8x at
the Competition and Markets Authority. Forty of the FCA’s most
senior officials already earn more than the Prime Minister.
-
Impact on equality: senior executives have,
despite repeated staff requests, refused to release the full
‘Equality Impact Assessment’ carried out as part of the
consultation. Lower paid staff, who are disproportionally from
minority ethnic communities, those on maternity leave, carers
and part time staff are likely to do worse in terms of
performance scoring if a grading curve is imposed. Yet staff
FCA have not had sight of any assessment of how this risk will
be managed when performance-related pay is decided. This has
been repeatedly denied to them.
-
‘Levelling down’ across FCA offices: FCA staff
in Edinburgh will be particularly hard-hit by the proposals to
salary changes outside London. Many are already at or near the
proposed new maximum pay band for their grades and Edinburgh is
a notoriously expensive city in which to live. Pay ranges for
proposed offices in Leeds and Belfast will also be
significantly lower, creating a ‘levelling down’ reality that
goes against current Government claims to be levelling up.
-
Graduates discriminated against: The FCA’s
flagship graduate programme has been seriously damaged. While
contractually defined as ‘Associates’, and expected to perform
to that level, both current and new graduates will not be
uplifted to the Associate pay band. A highly publicised part of
the Graduate programme – the external secondment scheme – was
abruptly ended in January 2021. Given the importance of
graduates as a pipeline of skilled talent, the collapse in
graduate staff morale is extremely concerning.
