Select Committee on Foreign Affairs Minutes of Evidence


Supplementary memorandum from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

Letter from the Clerk of the Committee to the Parliamentary Relations and Devolution Department, Foreign and Commonwealth Office

  The Committee decided at its meeting yesterday evening that, in the light of the FCO response to recommendations "h" to "j" of its Report on the FCO Annual Report 200[15], it will wish to extend the scope of the proposed oral evidence session with Sir Michael Jay on 4 February to include the FCO's contingency planning for responding to crises overseas.

  It would be very helpful if, in advance of that session, the Committee could receive a note expanding on the relevant sections of the Response to its Report. I recognise that this is very short notice, and while receipt of the note by the evening of 29 January would be particularly welcome, I am sure the Committee will be prepared to accept something as late as the afternoon of 3 February, if necessary.

Clerk of Committee

22 January 2003

Letter from the Parliamentary Relations and Devolution Department, Foreign and Commonwealth Office to the Clerk of the Committee

  1.  In your letter of 22 January, you asked for a note expanding on the FCO response to recommendations "h" to "j" of its Report on the FCO Annual Report 2002. This is set out below.

  2.  Recommendation h: We recommend that the Government, in its response to this Report, should set out what progress has been made in expediting the FCO's response time to the need to establish new diplomatic premises overseas, with particular reference to the use of containers.

  3.  Work is well advanced to ensure that the FCO has a rapid response capability. On the basis of experience in Kabul, the FCO has decided to acquire five converted containers to provide office and sleeping accommodation that can he held in readiness for immediate deployment wherever there is a need. We have planned for the worst case where staff going into a country have to be entirely self- sufficient. Contracts are now in place for the accommodation, communications equipment and protected vehicles. By mid February this will enable a small team of diplomatic staff to become fully operational, at short notice, anywhere in the world.

  4.  Recommendation i:  We recommend that consideration be given to establishing a register of former diplomatic staff prepared to be brought out of retirement for limited periods to respond to crises such as that in Afghanistan.

  5.  All staff who are due to retire are invited to register with the FCO's Outplacement and Career Counselling Service (PROSPER). Over 1400 retired FCO officers are also members of the FCO Association (FCOA). Both PROSPER and FCOA maintain databases containing members' details. We are using these databases to identify volunteers to help in our response to crises, as was the case, for example, over Afghanistan.

  6.  With the aim of making the PROSPER database as efficient as possible and following the FAC's last Report, we wrote in mid-December to all retired staff in all grades who had registered with Prosper and were on our database. In our letter we asked them to confirm that they were still interested in finding work in retirement. We wanted to be sure that we understood peoples' circumstances so that we were in a position to help them if required. We also asked them to complete and return a modified registration form, ticking attributes on the list we sent. This is allowing us more precisely than before to register our retirees' particular skills, experience and interests and in turn to interrogate our database more effectively. (Officers listed on our database are in the great majority under 65 years of age. We normally remove the names of the over 65s from the list during our periodic updating exercises.)

  7.  We sent out 259 letters and asked for replies within six weeks. After that time we said we would assume that addressees were no longer interested in work and we would therefore remove them from our register. To date we have had 145 replies and they are still coming in. Of those replying, some said they were still actively looking for work and some that their time was fully occupied and that they preferred to be taken off the register.

  8.  Over the Christmas period. Prosper identified 20 retired officers on the database who would be prepared to work for the Emergency Unit or the Consular Emergency Unit in the event of a crisis in the Middle Fast over the next weeks. We actually found 49 retired officers from all grades who had Middle East and consular experience, had not left the FCO too long ago and who lived within easy reach of London from which to make the selection.

  9.  We will be refining the database still further in the next few weeks when it is fully updated, to include some new fields eg on location in the UK by county. This will enable even more efficient interrogation. We are also taking steps to make quite sure that as officers approach retirement they are aware of the option of registering with Prosper. The success of the database depends on officers registering in the first place. We identified retirees for the Emergency Units very quickly and are confident we could do so again should the need arise and should the finance be available for paying them.

  10.  Recommendation j:  We recommend that the next Annual report should report progress on the development of systems for responding to international crises and for the rapid deployment of serving or retired diplomatic, consular or other personnel in response to changing circumstances worldwide.

  11.  The FCO has set up three Rapid Deployment Teams that can be despatched to support Posts when a major consular crisis occurs. These teams are on 24 hours stand-by in rotation.

  12.  Each Rapid Deployment Team is led by a senior Diplomatic Service officer and comprises about eight staff, equipped with IT and communications. The precise size and composition of the team will depend on the circumstances, but the teams include a core of staff with consular experience and organisational skills. Counsellors and police liaison officers will reinforce the teams as necessary. When deployed, the teams will be under the overall charge of the Head of Post. Their role includes providing help to British nationals affected by the incident, and to the families of victim; establishing links with the local authorities and emergency services; and ensuring efficient co-operation with other British agencies, such as the Police, who may be called to the scene.

  13.  The FCO is developing training courses for all members of the Rapid Deployment Teams. The courses will cover issues such as dealing with the bereaved, family liaison, body identification, the work of coroners and pathologists and organisational matters including the use of dedicated IT and communications equipment.

  14.  We have also reviewed how the FCO handles crises and responds to emerging events. We have concluded that the current system of out-of-hours Resident Clerks, while it has served us well, needs to be replaced by a Response Centre operating 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Plans are well advanced to introduce such a unit over the coming months. This will provide a permanently alert, single point of entry to the FCO for the public, media, foreign governments and others. It will ensure an immediate, coordinated and continuous response to foreign policy challenges in a global age.

Parliamentary Relations & Devolution Department

Foreign and Commonwealth Office

29 January 2003




15   Foreign Affairs Committee, Twelfth Report of Session 2001-02, Foreign and Commonwealth Office Annual Report 2002, HC 826, p 5. Back


 
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