FDA (trade union)

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**FDA**

Founded	1919
Members	16,000
Country	United Kingdom
Affiliation	TUC, STUC, ICTU, Wales TUC, PSI
Key people	Jonathan Baume, general secretary
Office location	Westminster, London, England
Website	www.fda.org.uk

The FDA is a federated British trade union and professional association for senior civil servants and public service professionals, founded in 1919. It has around 16,000 members, including Whitehall policy advisers and senior managers, tax inspectors, economists and statisticians, government-employed lawyers and crown prosecutors, schools inspectors, diplomats, senior national museum staff, accountants and NHS managers.

Its federal structure means that some of its members do not join FDA directly, but rather an affiliated organisation. In particular, senior staff at HM Revenue and Customs apply to the Association of Revenue and Customs (ARC), and management in the NHS join Managers in Partnership (MiP).

The FDA is an affiliate of the Trades Union Congress, the Scottish Trades Union Congress, the Wales TUC and the Irish Congress of Trade Unions but is not affiliated to the Labour Party or any other political party. The FDA is also affiliated to Public Services International.

[edit] Name

Despite often being known (particularly in the British Press) as the "First Division Association", the legal name of the union is "FDA". It describes itself as 'FDA - the union of choice for senior managers and professionals in public service'.

The original name, 'The Association of First Division Civil Servants (FDA)' was chosen because it represented first division clerks, as opposed to the Second Division Association, which represented more junior clerks. Although the terms first and second division clerks were abolished in the 1920s, it proved impossible to agree on an alternative name, and the name remained until 2001 when, following a motion to the union's annual conference, the official name became "FDA".

[edit] General Secretary

Jonathan Baume has been General Secretary since 1997 and was previously Assistant General Secretary and Deputy General Secretary. The previous General Secretary (1989-96) was Elizabeth Symons and the one before that was John Ward (1980-8). The union's first full time General Secretary was Norman Ellis, who was appointed in 1974.