No strategy, no business plan, unstructured redundancies and no thought-through prioritisation of life-saving work. Comments on an embarrassing Dragon’s Den hopeful? You wish. Actually, it’s the current state of the Foreign Commonwealth Development Office (FCDO) in the UK.
The cutting of UK Official Development Assistance from 0.5% to 0.3% of Gross National Income is old news but worth repeating as the UK International Development Committee recently called for submissions regarding the Future of Aid. Perhaps you saw that our colleague Alan Braithwaite had submitted a paper on behalf of Catalyst Now (links to the submission can be found at the end of this article).
The cut is all the more disappointing as it was announced by a Labour government that many hoped would see a new way forward for the UK as a global citizen, but that is, in reality cutting aid to fund weapons.
A further WTAF moment comes when, in an oral evidence session, it was revealed that the 25-30% staff cuts were already underway. Okay you may say- boohoo for UK staff losing their jobs, but the cuts have really life-threatening implications in the wider world. Exactly. Read on.
At the end of November, 2025 the International Development Committee (IDC) held an oral evidence session on the future of UK aid and development assistance. During the hearing, Lois Austin, a full-time union official for the FCDO, explained the position then current position: “We are in consultation, but—there is no business case to justify such a huge cut in staff numbers. There is no rationale and no workforce plan. No work has been done on what the FCDO currently does and the work that it delivers—the vital stuff that it does here and overseas. None of that work has been done.”
Sarah Champion, Chair of the IDC, interjected: “Could I pause you, because I am a bit confused. In September we got a new Foreign Secretary and she, understandably, will have her own priorities and wish list that she wants to emphasise. When we had the Development Minister in front of us, we were told that the Department was working on the new development programme, and that the draft would be early in the new year. What I do not understand is whether Ministers have made all the decisions on their priorities, and whether these staff are being cut dependent on those priorities?”
Austin replied: “No, and that is a very good question that really goes to the essence of the problem… We asked what the cuts to the ODA budget mean in terms of what work will no longer be done. We were told the strategy unit is currently working on that. The strategy unit is involved in about three different reviews but that work is being done completely separately from the restructuring programme and the job cuts programme. That, for us, is alarming. It is the cart before the horse.”
Champion responded: “It is more than alarming; it is nonsensical. So, for example, if the new Foreign Secretary decides that her priority is WASH, but the whole departmental team and the bilateral spend have been cut so they just say, ‘Sorry, Foreign Secretary, you can’t have that,’ that is an extraordinary situation.”
To view the session on Parliament TV. Click here: https://parliamentlive.tv/event/index/ed3297f7-886b-4e76-a41f-1cb7a43ed7e4?in=00:00:00
To read the submission by Alan Braithwaite and Catalyst Now use the following links:
HTML version: https://committees.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/151311/html/
PDF file: https://committees.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/151311/pdf/
