The Financial Conduct Authority’s (FCA) introduction of an excess payment on the its private medical insurance (PMI) scheme has become a key negotiating point in the dispute between the regulator and staff.
A series of demands from staff to the FCA highlighted the perceived unfairness of introducing the excess payment of £100 per year for low grade staff and £200 per year for higher grade staff.
They called for health benefit contributions to be scaled to pay, saying: “The current one-off excess penalises the lowest paid and part-time staff who are more likely to have disabilities or health conditions.”
The FCA originally proposed adding an excess for staff to use the organisation’s PMI cover as premiums had doubled over the previous five years in October 2021.
Morale collapsed
The list of demands addressing the dispute was submitted to the FCA through trade union Unite which said morale had collapsed at the regulator.
The plan also calls for the FCA to recognise the Unite union, adjust upcoming pay increases to take account of inflation, address perceived unfairness in staff performance gradings, and to better implement flexible working practices.
“The FCA has seen a turnover of nearly a fifth of all staff in the last year alone and a quarter in the last two years, with many leaving daily,” the trade union said.
“Unite has seen morale collapse and 60% of FCA staff now say they no longer have trust or confidence in leadership.
“As a result, staff are leaving, FCA performance is declining across the board, firms are not getting value for their fees, and consumers are being failed.
“The FCA no longer has the people, experience and institutional knowledge needed to regulate in difficult financial times,” it added.
Proposals
Under the action plan laid out by Unite, other issues the regulator should address include:
- Recognise Unite the Union and allow staff to have a free and fair vote on how they wish to be represented.
- Adjust next year’s 4% base pay rise to take account of rising inflation and the cost of living crisis, to pay all staff at least the minimum of their pay grade and pay staff at Leeds and Edinburgh offices the same for the same work their colleagues in London carry out.
- Judge staff on their actual performance, not on a curve. Unite claims FCA managers are forced to find 15% of competent staff as failing just to meet quotas, adding this is “unfair, demoralising and makes the FCA an unhealthy place to work”.
- Unite claims the regulator’s current performance grading system is particularly unfair for staff with disabilities and workplace adjustments and abolishing the curve can improve equality and inclusion.
- Link director remuneration to diversity, inclusion and staff survey outcomes. This, Unite adds, would incentivise better outcomes and is an accountable way to improve performance as well as being an independent way to restore staff trust.
- Set up an emergency assistance fund like the Bank of England’s St Christopher Fund to help employees in emergency situations.
- Establish flexible and decentralised hybrid working as Unite claims that a one-size-fits-all approach cannot work for a large and diverse organisation and local teams and departments know what works best.
- Introducing flexible working options to allow greater flexibility in how employees work, including compressed hours and enable staff to work around caring responsibilities or taking up volunteering opportunities.
- Equal paid leave as Unite contends that PBS and associate staff deserve the same leave entitlement as their management colleagues.
Last month, the regulator committed to speaking to staff to turn their feedback into action as it continues to face fallout from its labour dispute in response to a question at October’s annual public meeting about a lack of employee confidence in the regulator’s chief executive Nikhil Rathi.
The move followed FCA staff voting in February and April to back industrial action in its dispute around changes to pay and conditions.