Staff testimonies

I came to work at the FCA after years of experience in the public sector. I took a pay cut because I wanted to work somewhere that mattered. My partner took on a second job and that helped make up the shortfall. This month I had to tell my partner that my pay for the year was 10% less than the year before. And that’s before the impact of tax changes and rising bills. My pay won’t return to 2020 levels until 2025.

I am the main wage earner in my family after my husband developed a long-term health condition and had to give up his full-time job. I have two children. I joined the FCA seven years ago with assurances about discretionary pay and benefits. During that time my basic salary has not kept pace with inflation but I at least received discretionary pay of around 11% if I met performance standards, which I needed to keep on top of the bills. Under the new offer, I receive no discretionary pay, with a cut in my salary of 1% this year, 2% next year, and no chance of a raise from the third year onwards. This is not even taking into account inflation. I chose to work for the FCA rather than take a higher paid job at a financial firm as I wanted to help make the financial sector a cleaner, safer place. Why should I stand to lose my pay while the salary of our leaders remains untouched? The FCA has ignored the financial plight of many of its staff. 

I am a female with a disability, at the bottom of my band and a high performer consistently yet with the new proposals I am 10K worse off (even though I got rated as a ‘strong performer’) to the point where I will not be able to re-mortgage next year since the bank considered my discretionary pay a part of my salary. I live alone and have no other financial support so I will have to get another job to be able to afford my flat or sell it. I can’t even imagine what the impact is like for people with children and in rented accommodation.

I joined the FCA 6 years ago and worked my way up from Junior to Senior Associate. When promoted I was put at the bottom of my salary band where external hires with less experience came in on salaries £5-6k higher, which felt unfair. The FCA promised to address these ‘pay anomalies’ in its recent offer and it hasn’t. While I was fortunate to have my performance graded as strong this year, 20% of my salary was at stake, meaning the whole process was extremely stressful because I was thinking about the ramifications. Even then, I’m now £4k below my base salary and new hires to my grade will go to the new baseline salary, which means I’m still not being paid in line with my peers! I’m sharing this as there are lots of people in the FCA who have experienced the same pay discrimination and we don’t understand why or how this is fair. For me it’s not about the money, otherwise, I’d be working in the private sector. I just want to be paid in line with my peers.

I’ve worked for the FCA for a long time. I have always been happy to put in extra hours for an organisation I believe in and thought they recognised and rewarded me for that. Especially in the last two years, I worked extremely long hours as we needed to do all we could to protect consumers during a crisis. At the end of it all, I have my pay cut just as the cost of living bites. Who is working to protect me? I am the main earner for my family, this means cutting not just holidays, but the basics such as heating, food and activities. This feels like a kick in the teeth after all the extra work and commitment.

I was graded as ‘underperforming’ this year despite only being in my new team for a few months and having received excellent feedback from my previous role. I don’t understand how my performance is being graded if it’s not based on my recorded performance. I understand from colleagues who received ‘strong’ grades that my salary is currently higher than theirs will be from June. I’m so confused, how does this make any sense? 😡

I was graded as ‘underperforming’ in my end of year review, which was completely unexpected, and unjust. I had been on loan to another team in the second half of the year and was told that I was working over and above what was expected of me. Nobody said I was underperforming and not meeting my objectives. Indeed, my Manager told me that my grading does not reflect my abilities. My appeal was still rejected. Having worked my way up to the position I am in, I started near the bottom of the old pay band for my role. My ‘underperforming’ grade means, under the new employment offer, I am now well below (about £6,000 under!) the new band for my role. This has completely affected my confidence. I was always told I do a good job. I am now in a position where most my peers, some people in more junior roles, and new starters will be paid significantly more than me and that’s just my colleagues in Edinburgh! My teammates in London (many of which have less experience than me) will be earning more than any of us for the same work. After 8 years of working extremely hard, trying to constantly prove myself, I feel degraded, undervalued and like all my hard work was for nothing.

I am what the FCA refers to as a ‘consistently strong’ performer, meaning I have always been graded as ‘strong performance’ or ‘meeting expectations’. I have received on numerous occasions ‘At Our Best’ awards which, according to the FCA, “recognise those who live our values in a way that has a significant and lasting impact on our business”. I also regularly receive ad-hoc positive feedback from colleagues who recognise my contribution. My manager tells me I am one of the strongest performing members of the team. Despite this, my line manager has repeatedly said that if I wanted to secure a promotion, I would need to look outside the FCA and leave. The reasons for this were not explained to me. I find it disappointing that I cannot progress my career within the organisation, despite being a strong performer, regularly working overtime and delivering to a high standard under tight deadlines. I wish I could get support to progress and grow within the organisation without the FCA wanting to manage me out to avoid having to promote me. We have lost many high-calibre team members as a result and are now chronically understaffed.

I joined the FSA/FCA many years ago on a low grade, and worked my way up to Manager. I always went to the bottom of the pay band upon promotion, unlike external appointees. But also always got at least a “good” performance rating. This year, I was graded as “Targeting Improvement” as I struggled after getting covid in 2020, before vaccines, and developed long covid and possibly heart disease. My workplace made no adjustments for me to balance my health and work. So, for the first time in my life, I got a lower grade as my performance was seen as “inconsistent”, despite ultimately meeting my objectives. The loss of income this entails at a time of inflation is hard to accept. On top of this, I am so upset by the FCA cutting the dependents’ pension. I’m only in my forties but I now have a reduced life expectancy and I have 2 very young children. All my concerns were downplayed, and as a manager, I was in fact asked to help staff ‘accept’ the employment offer. The time it took to get the Long covid diagnosis has already caused me a lot of grief and instead of support and reasonable adjustment I got a low-performance rating. 

 I feel industrial action is the only alternative we have left to change the behaviour of our leadership. It shocks me when our Directors, paid between £200-455k, dismiss the very real concerns of our staff as “scuttlebut” and “noise! Repeatedly our leadership espouses disingenuous arguments around the refusal to allow a staff vote on Union recognition (akin to a retailer who sold a faulty product saying “nah, mate, you’ll have to take it to court for a refund, it’s the process”). It’s clear that in this dispute, FCA leadership don’t want to play fair. We’re not here to bring the FCA to its knees, but by striking we can hopefully shine a light on our leadership and raise questions over their reputation. It shouldn’t take this to bring reasonable leaders around the table. We don’t think we’re entitled to the world, but surely staff are entitled to have their voice meaningfully heard?

My family is 5 people, 3 children. All 3 have a long term/lifelong mental health conditions and we are all struggling with mental health challenges. Until now we have been extremely lucky enough to have long term support from different therapists via our BUPA benefit. The changes the FCA have made to this benefit mean I will have to find £1,000 to continue this crucial support for my family on top of wider pay cuts during a cost of living crisis at a time when the NHS cannot provide the services with my family need. Having known children put themselves in dangerous situations before getting the support I’m scared about the implications for us. I expect this may seem a luxury, but it was part of my remuneration and now some are facing the choice between a large loss of income or effectively taking away vital, life-saving support

As a person in the final year of the Graduate scheme, I’m one of the few people the FCA are claiming to give a pay rise to. This turned out to be misleading. All throughout the consultation period, the proposals they put forward made no suggestion that we would be excluded from this 4% ‘back pay’ figure staff would receive. It was only after the proposals had been finalised that HR emailed me and my colleagues to say a mistake had been made and we wouldn’t receive this 4% increase. They had 6 months and several drafts to spot this ‘mistake’. It feels like they make these decisions up on the spot as and when they like with no accountability. I thought the purpose of the FCA was to tackle dodgy behaviours like this, not illustrate them.  

I was unfairly awarded a ‘targeting improvement’ in my performance appraisal this year. This was a shock as I had received glowing feedback from various colleagues, Manager, and Head of Department and had never received any feedback that I was underperforming. These are the same people who then rejected my appeal and gave contradictory reasons as to why. Whilst I’ve been going through this unfair appeals process (where Managers and Heads of Departments are asked to mark their own homework) HR failed to provide me with the diversity information I requested. I don’t have the energy to raise an HR grievance. This situation has already had a negative effect on my mental health. I am upset to have been penalised, especially having been placed in an extremely under-resourced team where most of the team had resigned or left in the last 4 months. I’ve been working so hard to keep that team functional in at least some way and all I get at the end is a slap on the wrist and a pay cut.