July 29, 2025
Dave Penman
The Warsaw Uprising Monument, dedicated to the Warsaw Uprising of 1944.
I spent the first ten years of my working life being a civil servant and then the next thirty representing them, so I’m familiar with most areas of the service, from small Arm’s Length Bodies to the great departments of state. Understanding what our members do every day, and the breadth of the work carried out by civil servants, is helpful when you spend a lot of time defending the service, its value and its values.
One area I was less familiar with was the work of our members based overseas, in our embassies and missions. The promotion and protection of the UK’s interests around the world, is often unseen, so I was delighted when the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) offered me the opportunity to see this vital work first-hand. After refusing to accept my business case for Bermuda or the Seychelles, we agreed on Warsaw, at the forefront of two of the big challenges the country faces right now: security and economic growth. I was accompanied by FCDO HR Director Mervyn Thomas, who acted as my guide and minder in equal measures.
Poland is a fascinating and beautiful country, with such a strong sense of national identity, forged in part through an extraordinary recent history. It is hard to imagine that it’s only a little over 30 years since the country emerged from the communist era, with its history of repression and state violence.
Today, Poland is a country and economy transformed. In the last 20 years, the economy has doubled in size and is forecast to grow by 3.4% in 2025. It has one of the lowest unemployment rates in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) at 2.6%, despite the massive influx of refugees from Ukraine, many of whom are economically active. However, it does have longer-term structural problems in the economy, principally from an aging population and one of the lowest birth rates in the world. This has challenges for longer-term skills gaps, pressure on public services and the social challenges associated with immigration being used to fill said gap. Sound familiar? The first round in the Presidential election was being held on the day I arrived, and there had been a disturbing rise in the vote share of some of the more extreme anti-immigration candidates.
The war in Ukraine is never far from your mind, with more than one million refugees taken by Poland in the immediate aftermath of the invasion, an extraordinary act of compassion by a country experiencing profound political, economic and social consequences. Poland is one of Ukraine’s staunchest supporters, and in the weeks running up to the Presidential election, attempts to destabilise the country were routine, with illegal immigrants bussed to the border with Belarus. This has also impacted upon the work of the mission since 2022, which has been at the forefront of the UK’s response to the invasion.
Mission is the term used to describe the UK’s presence in a country, but it was evident from the first meeting of the day on the Monday morning, with Section Heads, that “mission-based” government is very much how an embassy operates. The meeting included staff based in Poland from a number of government departments and agencies, all of whom work to the Head of Mission Anna Clunes. They discussed the political situation and advice that will be relayed back to the UK following the election. The economic opportunities associated with our strong historical ties with Poland were very much a priority for the mission, as I was to see the next day: developments on border security, contraband and customs, as well as running through the weekly diary, from ministerial visits to TV interviews.