TUC gets millions from government foreign aid pot

According to International Policy Network, which today publishes a report on the TUC’s relationship with the DfID, A Closer Union, the labour organisation has benefited from three grants from the taxpayer since 2003 totalling £3.6 million, including the current PPA. The earlier payments were intended to raise awareness within the British union movement of international development issues.

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The Government is giving the Trades Union Congress millions of pounds from its foreign aid budget to pay for the education of British trade unionists and to support advocacy work in Britain.

The payments by the Department for International Development (DfID), which include a £2.4 million grant, are evidence of a deepening relationship between the DfID and the TUC, which is being urged to help the government department to set development priorities.

The new grant, for 2009-11, is made under the Partnership Programme Arrangement (PPA). This is a system of funding set up to support dedicated aid charities, such as Oxfam or ActionAid, that have a record in international development.

The TUC has been offered a PPA despite an independent review of the DfID’s development advocacy work that examined the department’s relationship with the TUC and found “little evidence regarding the effectiveness of the individual projects”. The money awarded under the PPA, of which the TUC has already received an instalment of £900,000, is not confined to work in developing countries. The memorandum of understanding between the DfID and the TUC indicates that among its key aims is advocacy, specifically “activities to build support for development in the United Kingdom that are likely to contribute to a reduction in poverty in other countries”.

According to International Policy Network, which today publishes a report on the TUC’s relationship with the DfID, A Closer Union, the labour organisation has benefited from three grants from the taxpayer since 2003 totalling £3.6 million, including the current PPA. The earlier payments were intended to raise awareness within the British union movement of international development issues.

A key purpose of the deepening relationship between the DfID and the TUC is to share strategic objectives and bring the two organisations closer together at a policy level. The partnership seeks to incorporate DfID’s development goals into TUC policy but it also envisages a TUC role in setting DfID policy. The latter emerges in the Performance Framework of the PPA, a document agreed by the department and the TUC that lists the strategic objectives of the grant and criteria for assessing whether they have been accomplished. The document’s preamble states: “The TUC is the voice of Britain at work”, and that it is a “key influencer in British society”.

Two objectives relate to activity in developing countries, including raising the “capacity” of foreign trade unions to enforce workers’ rights. The two other objectives relate to advocacy and policy-making, such as “Greater British trade union membership, understanding of and commitment to sustainable development” and “strengthened UK and developing country trade union international development policy”.

When asked why the Government was using money earmarked for aid to developing countries to pay British trade unions, a DfID spokesman said: “The TUC performs vital work in protecting workers in the developing world from exploitation and improving their often hazardous working conditions.” The spokesman added that the grant would be used “largely for development assistance”.

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