Letter to the Chairman from the Secretary
of State; Foreign and Commonwealth Office
You may like to know that I am initiating an
outside study of whether the Foreign Office is delivering what
its stakeholders want. I am sure the consultant will want to talk
to you.
As I have said ever since I came here, I see
the FCO and our overseas network as working for the whole of Her
Majesty' Government. It is one of, if not the, principal means
for HMG to project and protect Britain's interests immediately.
Last Autumn we did a systematic consultation
of all main Government Departments, as part of our continuing
efforts to ensure we use the network to best effect for all current
government policies.
But, as you will be first to recognise, our
stakeholders range far wider than the rest of HMG. Hence this
new stakeholder survey. We need an outside consultant to do this,
in order to get frankness and objectivity.
For that very reason (protection of source)
I cannot promise to make the consultant's report available to
you verbatim. But I can promise to send you a report summarising
it, and what actions we intend to take in the light of its conclusions.
I hope the consultancy will be completed during
the summer so that I can come back to you on this in the early
autumn.
Rt Hon Jack Straw
Foreign and Commonwealth Office
May 2002
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