Letter to the Chairman of the Committee
from the Permanent Under Secretary of State, Foreign and Commonwealth
Office, dated 7 August 2006
REVIEW OF
FCO'S DISCRETIONARY
PROGRAMME BUDGETS
Dear Chairman,
When I met members of the Committee informally
last month, I reaffirmed Michael Jay's undertaking to put systems
in place which will enable you to receive information on a more
systematic basis and to see key management papers which are of
interest to the Committee. In that context, I enclose a copy of
the review of the FCO's discretionary programme budgets, which
has been discussed by the FCO Board.
As you will see, the review found plenty of
evidence that our Global Opportunities Fund (GOF) programmes are
helping to support the delivery of our strategic priorities. But
the review also identified aspects which need further work. In
particular, we need to tighten up our procedures for monitoring
the outcomes achieved by our bilateral and Chevening programmes.
This is not to say they are not delivering useful outcomes, rather
that our system for reporting and measuring those outcomes needs
improving. Work is in hand to make the necessary improvements.
The FCO's Public Diplomacy Group, following Lord Carter's review
of public diplomacy, were already working up new evaluation mechanisms
for FCO-funded public diplomacy activity and had instituted a
review of the Chevening programme which will, inter alia, address
the suggestion of a retrospective review of the effectiveness
of the programme.
The FCO Board's Finance Committee will review
at their next meeting in September an implementation plan for
the review's recommendations and I will send you a copy thereafter.
I will also send you a progress report in six months time. In
the meantime, some of the review's recommendations have already
been implemented following Board discussions.
Yours sincerely,
Sir Peter Ricketts KCMG
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