UK scraps hardship pay for diplomats posted to Buenos Aires and Santiago
The UK Foreign Office has removed Buenos Aires and five other cities from its list of hardship-pay locations for diplomats, drawing criticism from the Conservatives while officials defend the decades-old scheme.
The UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office has dropped six cities from the list of postings that qualify staff for hardship payments, according to an updated list published last week. Buenos Aires and Santiago in South America were removed, along with Panama City, Pyongyang, Bamako and Sarajevo.
The payments, along with additional rest breaks, are granted to diplomats working in locations seen as risky — such as Beirut — those with high crime rates, like Pretoria, or severe air pollution, such as New Delhi and Beijing. The list still covers 144 locations, including genuine trouble spots as well as popular holiday destinations such as Bali and Rio de Janeiro, which has drawn criticism from the Conservative Party.
Criticism and defence
Conservative Party chairman Kevin Hollinrake said it was unfair for taxpayers to fund civil servants' postings to places like Bali, Cape Town and the Maldives, describing them as taxpayer-funded 'jollies.' He pledged to reduce the size of the civil service if the Conservatives returned to government.
A Foreign Office spokesperson defended the arrangement, saying British diplomats serve in some of the toughest and most challenging physical and political environments worldwide, and that the government has a duty of care to properly support its staff, similar to practices in the private sector.
Foreign Office minister Lord Wood of Anfield, responding to a parliamentary question, said hardship assessments account for factors requiring staff to take extra breaks to protect their physical or mental health, adding that the arrangements are not new and have applied consistently across successive governments for decades.
The hardship allowance scheme has existed for around 30 years, factoring in security risks, climate, natural disasters and isolation. The last published breakdown, from 2009, showed the highest payments went to postings in Karachi, Pakistan, while couples posted to Buenos Aires received £1,517 and those in Santiago received £777.
