The UK’s Foreign Office is undertaking job cuts so severe that it is about to halve the size of its team dealing with the fallout from the Iran war.
The office established a crisis bunker at its London headquarters at the start of the conflict, with officials working round-the-clock shifts in a windowless room to support and evacuate British nationals in the region. Now, that group is being swept up in the downsizing drive overseen by Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper.
The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office contingent works alongside teams from the Home Office, the Department for Transport and the Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government, which are not subject to the same cuts as the diplomatic corps. Almost three months on, efforts by the UK and its allies to resolve the situation in Iran have made little progress, with ship traffic still halted through the Strait of Hormuz.
The Iran team is not the only high-priority Foreign Office group to be downsizing at a critical time. Officials below the most senior have been made to reapply for their jobs and will find out by next week whether their roles are being kept, according to people familiar with the matter, who requested anonymity. Around half of the Iran crisis team is expected to take up the redundancy offers, they said.
The Foreign Office confirmed the job cuts in a statement to Bloomberg.
“As part of our workforce reforms, we are offering colleagues who wish to move on the opportunity to do so through a discretionary exit scheme,” the department said. “The scheme is open to all staff, and applications are being assessed to ensure we retain the expertise needed to maintain a more resilient, agile and modern organisation.”
While staffers in axed positions can apply for another posting, unsuccessful applicants will be made jobless by summer. Bloomberg first reported how the Foreign Office’s ambition to reduce its headcount by up to 25 per cent was denting morale at the department responsible for handling global crises. The foreign policy wing of the British state currently employs around 17,000 staff in 281 offices worldwide, according to the government website.
Some ambassadors returning from senior positions abroad have been arriving back in London to learn they do not have a new posting. Diplomats have compared the competition over a dwindling number of roles to The Hunger Games – the dystopian franchise in which teenagers compete in a battle to the death.
Senior officials told Bloomberg that job cuts and a promotion freeze have prompted what one called a confidence crisis. In recent weeks that has been compounded by the high-profile way that former senior Foreign Office civil servant Olly Robbins was forced out over the decision to appoint Peter Mandelson as US ambassador early in Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s tenure.
On Tuesday, the Foreign Office confirmed that the UK’s No 2 diplomat in Washington, James Roscoe, had abruptly left the post, without explaining why. Mr Roscoe had filled in for Mr Mandelson for a time after his removal last year.
One official told Bloomberg in April that the cuts amounted to salami-slicing, while another spoke of a condescending and demoralising process in which diplomats with decades of experience were having to point to sections of a “capability wheel” to make arguments to stay in post.
The UK’s global influence with its biggest trading partner, the US, has been significantly dented in the aftermath of Brexit. Under US President Donald Trump, Britain has struggled to maintain the integrity of the transatlantic alliance, despite the close security and intelligence ties shared by both countries.
