Letter to the Chairman of the Committee
from the Permanent Under Secretary of State, Foreign and Commonwealth
Office
Foreign and Commonwealth Office Departmental Report
2004-05 evidence session—further information
I have seen Steve Priestley's letter of 28 October
to Chris Stanton. Our responses to the Committee's oral and written
questions are as follows:
1. COLLINSON
GRANT
Question 1. (a) With what elements of
the Collinson Grant analysis do you disagree?
Answer: As I said to the committee, I accept
many of the conclusions but not all of the analysis of the Collinson
Grant report. I do not accept the root and branch criticism of
the FCO. The FCO commissioned the report because we are conscious
of the need to change, modernise and reform and have been for
the last few years We also commissioned the report to help the
FCO meet its SR2004 commitments to further improve our operations
and our systems and to fulfil a demanding efficiency agenda.
We have made significant progress on change
in recent years. We are focusing our resources more around strategic
priorities: We are more adaptable in shifting resources to where
they are needed. We have a greater focus on service delivery.
We are more open, working more closely with other government departments
and external partners such as NGOs. As I said in my testimony
to the committee, I reject the proposition that the FCO lacks
the necessary core diplomatic and political skills. We have a
large number of people doing high grade work in difficult and
dangerous places.
We accept many of the recommendations of the
Collinson Grant Report. A number of them, such as the review of
the HR and Finance functions, we are already implementing. Some
of them we believe to be ill-founded. The report, for example,
proposes savings through reducing the resource deployed on briefing
MPs before overseas visits, or providing briefing to British business.
Question 1. (b) What are the other "three
strands of work" referred to in your Answer to Q4 received
from the FAC on 25 August 2005. Can we receive reports on these
strands?
Answer: The FCO has agreed with the Treasury
an efficiency plan designed to achieve an £87 million reprioritisation
target as part of the SR 2004 settlement. The work of Collinson
Grant was intended to help deliver that target. The report on
efficiency, effectiveness and the control of costs represents
one of four strands of work that Collinson Grant were commissioned
to undertake. The others were a Process Activity Analysis of the
FCO's operations; a comparative analysis of the FCO's expenditure;
and an analysis of the FCO's organisational structures. These
latter three strands were delivered by databases rather than by
reports.
Based upon self-completed questionnaires from
a large number of FCO staff in the UK and overseas, the Process
Activity Analysis breaks down the activities of staff in all grades
into process activities (eg initiating submissions, managing staff,
budgeting). The comparative analysis of the FCO's expenditure
contains cash expenditure broken down by type of expenditure and
location (eg travel expenditure in Africa, electricity in New
York). The analysis of the FCO's organisational structure provides
a database on management workloads, organisational spans (ie the
number of subordinates managed by staff at each level and the
number of management levels in each organisation) as well as a
hierarchical breakdown of the FCO.
The information is in the form of a database.
It is therefore not possible to send it to the Committee. I am
happy to invite members of the Committee to visit the FCO to look
at the database itself and interrogate it as they wish. The database
is held in Finance Directorate (contact Rod Bunten in FPPD on
020 7008 1058)
Question 1. (c) The Collinson Grant Report
highlights considerable slippage in the efficiency programme to
date. The initial plan was to deliver £10.7 million by the
end of 2004-05, in September 2004 this was cut to £6.3 million.
The target for 2005-06 was cut from £55.8 million to £32.7
million. Is the FCO confident that it will achieve its efficiency
plans?
— What was the actual saving made in
2004-05?
— What is the current target saving
for 2005-06?
Answer: The Collinson Grant report was not
originally intended for external publication. Thus, resources
were not devoted to ensuring that it was completely error free,
providing those errors were not critical to the conclusions of
the report or detrimental to its value as a management tool. The
section referred to above is one area where the Collinson Grant
report contained inaccuracies. These are explained below.
The targets specified in the Collinson Grant
report against which they suggest the FCO efficiency plan has
slipped were erroneous due to a mixture of incorrect calculations,
double counting and including projects/savings figures that did
not find their way into the final efficiency programme. In detail
these errors are:
(i) The report refers to £55.8 million
target in 2005-06 in its text, the detail for which is given in
the report's Appendix 5. The corresponding figure given in this
appendix is £50.8 million suggesting a typographical mistake
of £5 million.
(ii) A further error appears in arriving
at the £50.8 million quoted in Appendix 5. Totalling the
savings quoted for each project in the table actually sums to
£47.3 million. The error appears to be due to incorrect subtotalling
of the 3 projects under "Elements with links to CG study"
which add up to £16.5 million not the £20 million quoted.
The remaining differences between the "corrected"
£47.3 million detailed in 2005-06 in the CG report and the
£38.7 million agreed with HMT in our efficiency plan are
accounted for as follows:
(iii) Appendix 5 of the CG report lists projects
"Major contract service", "OGD" and "Workforce
efficiencies". Earlier drafts of the efficiency plan did
mention such projects, but those projects have since been rolled
into other projects, with which they overlap. Including them separately
leads to £4 million of double counting.
(iv) Targets for a number of the projects
quoted in the report are different from (mainly higher than) those
towards which project managers are working. It is unclear the
exact reasons for this, but may be due to CG working to earlier
drafts of the projects. The overall annual targets as agreed with
HMT have always remained constant, but targets for individual
projects fluctuated slightly in the early days of the efficiency
programme as project planning advanced and it become clearer what
individual projects could realistically deliver. Quoting the higher
targets for individual projects leads to further double counting.
As part of the 2004 Spending Review the FCO
agreed with HMT to make efficiency savings in its core (ie excluding
British Council and BBC World Service) expenditure of £4.7
million in 2004-05 and £38.7 million for 2005-06. The actual
for 2004-05 was £6.6 million, thus exceeding the target.
In 2005-06 we are confident of reaching £39 million, which
will be marginally above target.
Question 1. (d) Why is the CG report
not on the internet and can it be published there?
Answer: The Collinson Grant report is on
the Internet. It was published on the FCO website on 4 August
2005. It can be found at http://www.fco.gov.uk/Files/KFile/CGReportFinal,0.pdf
Question 2. Seventy per cent of FCO's expenditure
is classified as administrative expenditure, even though much
of this relates to front-line services. A Treasury PES a few years
ago encouraged all departments and agencies to review their expenditure
and to move anything related to front-line services into programme
expenditure. Has the FCO done any work to identify which staff
in its Posts abroad are directly involved in delivering front
line services, with a view to reclassifying the expenditure as
programme, thus allowing it to use programme efficiency savings
elsewhere to support the work of Posts?
Answer: The question of reclassification
of FCO expenditure overseas from administration to programme was
raised with the Treasury in SR04. The FCO suggested that all overseas
work should be classified as non-admin, since all staff overseas
are involved in service delivery. The Treasury have only agreed
to allow us to re-classify Consular and Visa work. We hope that
it will be possible to reconsider this issue in the context of
the Comprehensive Spending Review. (For the committee's information
95% of the savings in the FCO's efficiency programme derive from
the FCO's administration budget rather than from its programme
spend.)
Question 3. Consular access to New Orleans
after Hurricane Katrina
Answer: Consulate staff first sought access
to New Orleans on 30 August, the day the levees broke and followed
this up in the days thereafter. They were told by the Louisiana
State authorities that advice from the Louisiana Police, the National
Guard and the US State Department was that they should not seek
to enter New Orleans. They did not speak to the Mayor of New Orleans
as they considered the competence to lie with the State and Federal
authorities. At that time there were serious law-and-order problems
in New Orleans and the authorities believed the risk of harm befalling
our staff was too great, and they lacked the resource to provide
the requisite protection. Nor would the US government relief agencies
have welcomed foreign representatives on the ground there, potentially
adding to their problems.
Our staff did, however, deploy to several other
locations, in particular Baton Rouge, Houston and Dallas, where
the authorities told us evacuees were being channelled. And as
soon as they were allowed, staff began making daily visits to
New Orleans from the Baton Rouge office. The UK team was the first
to enter New Orleans on 4 September, when the US authorities gave
permission to foreign missions to do so. We and the Irish were
the only foreign consulates on hand in Dallas when 27 British
and some 40 other foreign nationals arrived there from the affected
area on 2 September.
The Foreign Secretary has written separately
to you about our response to Hurricane Katrina. His letter included
a detailed account of our efforts to enter New Orleans.
Question 4. Request to see Consular Guidance
Answer: We enclose copies of our consular
best practice publications, the Consular Handbook and the Consular
Desk Guide, all of which are available to all consular staff on
an internal basis, and a copy of our Emergency Planning Guidance.
The Consular Handbook has been produced for consular staff overseas.
The Consular Desk Guide has been produced for consular officers
based in the UK and is less detailed since UK-based staff benefit
from a wider range of expertise in London. The best practice publications
cover our most up to date policies on consular assistance issues
and are the main foundation of our consular training courses.
The publications are underpinned by Diplomatic Service Procedure
(DSP). However, parts of DSP are now out of date as they have
effectively been replaced by the best practice guides. Consular
Directorate is therefore looking to set up a rolling exercise
to review all our consular guidance and best practice volumes
and create a more coherent, single volume. This is likely to be
completed by spring 2006.
These documents are internal guidance for staff,
and therefore have not been released to the public. In the interests
of transparency, the Government made a manifesto commitment to
set out in a comprehensive guide to our consular assistance. The
Guide, which the FAC has seen, was launched for consultation in
draft form by the Foreign Secretary on 20 October 2005. The draft
Guide was carefully reviewed by Government lawyers bearing in
mind its status as a public document and the need to manage public
expectations about the consular assistance that we can provide.
The same is not the case with these documents, which were not
drafted with the intention of publication—firstly because
they focus on internal issues such as best practice and specialist
advice regarding delivery of assistance in particular situations
rather than general policies about the assistance we provide,
and secondly because they need to be frequently updated in order
to reflect changing circumstances, policy developments and lessons
learned. In order for us to be consistent in the message that
we give to the public about the core assistance that we provide
and to ensure that we do not raise public expectations unrealistically,
we have taken a policy decision not to publish these documents,
but I am happy to share them with the Committee on the understanding
they will not be released.
Question 5. Failure to meet PSA Targets (i)
Passports
Target: "to issue 95% of passports
overseas within five working days"
Answer: The Committee noted that we had
failed to meet our PSA target during 2004-05. Our GenIE passport
issuing system has enabled us to produce fraud-resistant, machine-readable
passports overseas but at the price of extended processing times.
We recognised at the time of the GenIE rollout in late 2003 that
we would need more than five working days to process passport
applications at peak times of the year at our largest passport
issuing posts. Accordingly, we negotiated a revised 10-day PSA
target with HM Treasury in the summer of 2004 as part of the 2004
Spending Review. This enabled the FCO to begin working to the
same timeframe for passport issuing as the UK Passport Service
(UKPS) from 1 April 2005. The 2004-05 statistics before the Committee
were produced under the five-day target agreed as part of the
2002 Spending Review. With the revised target in place, we expect
to meet the PSA target for GenIE passport issues during the current
financial year.
PSA Targets: (ii) Births and iii) Deaths
Registration
Target: "98% of birth registrations
carried out within five working day from receipt of correct fee
and correctly completed application" Result: 95.78%.
Target: "98% of death registrations
carried out within three working days from receipt of correct
fee and correctly completed application" Result: 96.19%.
Both targets are particularly challenging due
to the relatively small number of registrations undertaken. It
only takes a few failures to lead to an overall target miss (five
days (births) and three days (deaths) respectively). And for these,
the principal cause is:
— Insufficient documentary evidence:
(a) Deaths (17 failed from 446)—for
example, there may be a delay in receiving the death certificate
issued by the local authorities; there may be a lack of evidence
of the deceased's claim to British nationality, eg full birth
certificate or full British passport or certificate of naturalisation
or of registration as a British national. There may be a delay
in obtaining the original documents that are required.
(b) Births (364 failed from 8,620)—staff
need to see satisfactory documentary evidence which establishes
both the facts of the birth and the citizenship of the person
whose birth is to be registered. Delays (known to be a particular
problem in Pakistan, China and Turkey, where nearly half these
failures occurred) may result whilst the original documents are
obtained.
— If staff have reason to doubt the
validity of supporting documentary evidence, eg marriage certificate,
they must refer to Passports and Documentary Services Group in
Consular Directorate, London, before registering (even if the
birth may be registered by virtue of the mother's citizenship).
This will cause delays.
— Some Consular posts do not have a
Registration Officer who is able to carry out birth/death registrations.
Such Posts have to forward applications to a larger hub Post to
register and return to the spoke Post to pass back to the customer.
Delays will occur because of the travelling time; using FCO facilities
or local postal services. Customers are given the choice to use
express delivery services, eg DHL, but they have to cover the
extra cost involved.
PSA Targets (iv) Detainees
Target: "98% of detainees contacted
within 24 hours of notification of arrest, and detainee visited
as soon as possible thereafter if the detainee wishes." Result
96.67%.
In 2004-05, FCO consular staff contacted detainees
within 24 hours of arrest in 96.67% of cases, narrowly missing
the target. Those cases when detainees were not contacted within
24 hours of arrest were spread across consular Posts throughout
the world. Detainees were not contacted within the target time
for a variety of reasons, including local conditions in some countries
(eg difficulties in contacting detainee by telephone or post due
to poor facilities) and very large numbers of detainees at some
Posts, eg in Spain. Where we experience difficulties in contacting
detainees due to local conditions, we will always subsequently
raise our concerns with the local authorities.
Question 6. What annual savings in financial
terms will be made by these closures and localisations of posts
which you have just announced, and about which you have sent us
a memo?
The Written Ministerial Statement issued by
the Foreign Secretary on 11 October was an update, including some
minor changes, of the package of proposals of closures and localisations
announced on 15 December 2004. Our estimate of savings remains
as stated in the original Statement. The savings will come to
some £6 million at 2004-05 prices and exchange rates. Of
this figure £2.7 million will result from closures and localisations
in Europe, £0.7 million from the Americas, £0.9 million
from Africa and £1.4 million from Asia. In addition to these
cash savings, human and other resources will be released for redeployment
elsewhere. There will be some revenue from asset sales, although
these will take time to realise.
Question 7. Dublin—The Committee would
like an update on the current position [on the Residence]
Answer: As the Committee will be aware,
we currently occupy Glencairn. Work continues on the repurchase.
We believe that it is better to retain Marlay Grange until the
repurchase terms are finally agreed. It may also be worth clarifying
that, under an agreement made at the time of sale, we are not
paying rent on Glencairn.
Question 8. When considering the need to
close Posts overseas, has the FCO evaluated the possibility of
maintaining a UK presence in the manner it has adopted in Liberia?
Could sharing premises be in some cases a cost-effective and preferable
alternative to outright closure?
Answer: The package of closures and localisations
announced in December 2004 was the outcome of a careful consideration
of possible changes to our overseas network in order to align
our resources more effectively to our priorities. We looked at
the option of moving to an implant in a partner country's embassy
(as in Liberia) or sharing premises in a number of cases but it
did not prove to be a viable option. Among the factors were lack
of opportunities and that for these, generally small, posts the
net savings in running costs would have been negligible. Given
the overriding need to realign resources we therefore either kept
to the status quo, in cases where there remained an operational
necessity to retain a presence, or closed. We will continue to
look for opportunities for collocation. We are already collocated
with the following partners:
Germany— Almaty, Ashgabat, Dar es Salaam,
Pyongyang, Quito, Reykjavik
France — Almaty, Ashgabat
Italy — Minsk
The Netherlands — Dar
es Salaam, Chisinau
European Commission —
Dar es Salaam
Question 9. Why is there no UK representation
in Montenegro?
Answer: We recognise that the 2005 FAC report
on the Western Balkans concluded that independence for Montenegro
in 2006 is probable, and this adds to the case for a Post headed
by a UK-based diplomat in Podgorica. As circumstances change,
the shape of the network of posts is continuously reviewed to
align resources more effectively to priorities. Following the
2001 FAC report that recommended a permanent post in Podgorica,
we established an office there, headed by a locally-engaged member
of staff who is highly effective. The Embassy staff in Belgrade
work very closely with the British office in Montenegro and HMA
Belgrade pays regular visits to Podgorica. These arguments work
well enough for our needs in the present circumstances.
If a referendum results in an independent Montenegro
that has been achieved through a free and fair process, then the
question of opening an Embassy in Podgorica will need to be revisited.
We have noted the Committee's interest in and concern about the
level of our representation here. The Committee's views will be
given full weight in our deliberations.
Question 10. What is the final outturn for
overseas property sales in financial year 2004-05? What is the
FCO's prediction for sales in the current financial year?
Answer: As notified to the Committee through
our quarterly returns, the gross proceeds for FCO property sales
in FY 2004-05 was £10.574 million. The net outturn figure
is not yet available. Transaction costs vary, but average 6-8%.
During the 2004 Spending Round negotiations, we agreed a ceiling
of £15 million for asset recycling for the SR2004 period,
although in most years we expect receipts closer to £10 million.
Question 11. Has the lease on One Carlton
Gardens been renewed? Will the lease on Lancaster House be renewed?
If so, at what cost? Who is the leaseholder for each of these
properties?
Answer: The One Carlton Gardens lease has
not yet been renewed. We are holding over on an interim rent.
The FCO's agents, Debenham Tie Leung, are currently in negotiation
with The Crown Estate for its renewal from April 2005. The new
rent and lease terms have not yet been agreed. The tenant has
been the Secretary of State for the Environment. Should a new
lease be signed the tenant would be the First Secretary of State.
This decision will be for Ministers.
The Lancaster House lease, also held in the
name of the Secretary of State for the Environment, expires in
July 2007. No decision has yet been made on whether to renew.
This decision will be for Ministers.
Question 12. the Committee asked for confirmation
that the Foreign Secretary's reply to Mr Andrew Mackinlay's Parliamentary
Question 14400, relating to money paid by the FCO following grievance
procedures was correct. Mr Mackinlay asked how much public money
had been spent in each of the last five years in settlement of
grievance procedures brought against senior staff of the Department
by subordinate staff; how much was paid in each case; and if he
would indicate in each case whether the payment was in full and
final settlement.
Answer: We can confirm that the Foreign
Secretary's answer to this question, namely that no public money
had been spent in this way, was correct.
Question 13. Have any payments been made
in respect of external claims against the Foreign Office, perhaps
from employment tribunals or through other actions?
Answer: The amounts paid as a result of
settling some Employment Tribunal cases were given in the answer
to a Parliamentary Question in June 2004 from Mr Malcolm Bruce
MP. The amounts paid as a result of Employment Tribunal claims
over the last five years is as follows:
| 2001 | £500
|
| 2002 | £38,750 |
| 2003 | £500 |
| 2004 | £5,000 |
| 2005 | £6,000 |
| |
As is standard practice in the process of settling a legal
claim, confidentiality clauses are included where the case has
not yet been heard by a tribunal. The Committee also asked about
other actions brought against the FCO. The Committee may like
to know that in the last 12 months, there have been three awards
of damages made by the courts against the FCO, amounting to a
total of £60,000.
Question 14. How many serving or former members of the
senior diplomatic service are currently the subject of disciplinary
investigations or actions?
Answer: Our current records start in 2003, from the promulgation
of the FCO's new disciplinary procedures. To provide details prior
to this date could only be done at disproportionate cost. In 2003,
there were two cases of misconduct involving serving members of
the SMS. Both officers received written warnings. In 2004, there
were two disciplinary cases involving a member of the SMS who
has since left the Service. One case resulted in a written warning,
the other was discontinued on the officer's retirement from the
Service. There have been no disciplinary cases involving members
of the SMS to date in 2005.
Question 15. The Committee asked whether any former members
of staff had been paid more than their entitlement in early retirement
or severance terms.
Answer: Officers leaving the FCO on early retirement
or severance, including those who volunteered for early departure
as a result of the reduction in size of the Service following
the 2004 Spending Review, have been paid the amounts due to them
under the provisions of the Civil Service Pensions Scheme. We
have no record of any officer receiving payments in excess of
these entitlements.
Question 16. Recent examples of failure in project management
at FCO have included slippages in implementing Prism and i-visas
and cost overruns on building projects. A lack of project management
skills was also highlighted by the Collinson Grant Report. How
does the FCO intend to rectify the lack of project management
skills within its staff?
Answer: There is a dedicated Programme and Project Management
team within Finance Directorate responsible for policy in this
field. The team manages their own in-house website, which offers
links to a range of internal and external programme and project
management training courses. Internal training courses include
an introduction to programme and project management for all staff,
with priority being given initially to new entrants, and two courses
aimed specifically at those running Global Opportunity Fund programmes.
To support the Global Opportunity Fund programmes we have established
a regional Programme Management Office in Delhi. This offers training
to staff based in the region. We are currently reviewing all training
on offer for Professional Skills for Government core skills, which
of course includes programme and project management, and looking
at the possibility of obtaining accredited programmes. FCOServices
are the main providers of professional project management to the
FCO. As part of the move to trading fund status, they aim to establish
a centre of excellence for programme and project management to
improve delivery through further staff training.
Question 17: How many applications from all grades for
voluntary redundancy have been received; how many have been accepted
and how many have been rejected? In respect of the posts held
by those whose applications have been accepted, how many will
be refilled and how many will be scrapped?
Answer: 402 members of staff applied for early retirement
or severance to help the FCO meet the staff savings required under
the 2004 Spending Review. Of these 269 were accepted. We are continuing
to consider applications from members of the Senior Management
Structure, until 31 March 2006. So far a further 14 applications
have been successful. There will be no exact match between staff
departures and job reductions. This is inevitable in an organisation
where staff move jobs regularly. But the FCO is committed to a
staff reduction of 310, to be found mostly from administrative
support functions, by 1 April 2008. We are on course to achieve
this target. There will be an increase in the numbers working
in the service delivery areas of consular and visa work, where
staff numbers reflect external revenue income.
Question 18. BBC World Service—is there a threat
to the Nepali service?
Answer: BBC World Service's Nepali language Service was
not part of the changes to BBCWS announced on 25 October. The
BBCWS has no plans to close the Service. There has been some disruption
to the rebroadcasting of the Nepali service. But this is a result
of the political situation in Nepal, rather than any changes implemented
by BBCWS—the Nepalese government has barred FM stations
from broadcasting news.
Question 19. What is the financial breakdown of stakeholder
contributions to BBC Monitoring?
Answer: There are four BBC Monitoring stakeholders. These
are Cabinet Office (who will assume the lead stakeholder role
for BBC Monitoring in 2006), MOD, BBC World Service and the FCO.
Under the terms of the new funding settlement, the financial contributions
from 2006-07 onwards will be as follows:
| MOD | £7.5 million |
| Cabinet Office | £5.4 million
|
| World Service | £6.1 million
|
| FCO | £3.1 million |
In addition to the stakeholder contributions, in FY 06/07
and 07/08 the Treasury have agreed to add £2.5 million pa
to BBC Monitoring from the Counter Terrorism Reserve. From FY
08/09, the Treasury will add £1.3 million pa to BBC Monitoring's
baseline funding. This will deliver an average funding level for
the five-year period of £23.8 million pa. This amount is
augmented by some income derived from BBC Monitoring's commercial
sales.
Question 20. What criteria does the FCO use when deciding
whether to volunteer a document to the Committee? Will the Office
consider in future sending the Committee important Reports that
are clearly relevant to its work, such as those by Collinson Grant
and by Norman Ling, without waiting to be asked?
Answer: We always seek to ensure that the Parliamentary
aspects of our work are taken fully into account as it is progressing,
including the need to keep the FAC informed. This is particularly
true of areas in which we know the FAC has an active interest.
But we have not in the past had formal criteria for volunteering
documents.
We have therefore reviewed our approach and will incorporate
guidance to staff in writing submissions or presenting reports
to the Board that proactive disclosure to the FAC of decisions
or activity should always be considered. The presumption will
be that such information should be volunteered, but we would always
have to take into account personal and commercial confidences,
and any impact on the conduct of international relations.
Question 21. In how many cases since the Freedom of Information
Act came into force has a decision by the FCO to withhold information
sought under the Act been overruled on appeal?
Answer: In the period since the Freedom of Information
Act came into force on 1 January this year until 30 September,
the FCO has received a total of 1,059 requests. Of the 68 cases
that were subject to internal review within the FCO, three were
overturned, seven were partially overturned, and the remainder
were upheld.
In the same period, the FCO has received and responded to
six complaints from the Information Commissioner, none of which
has so far led to a decision to withhold information sought under
the Act being overruled.
Question 22. The FCO's classified scorecards include performance
indicators relating to the Millennium Development Goals and other
areas of policy which might be regarded as being of very legitimate
public interest, without compromising security. Is the FCO satisfied
that the classification of a very high proportion of its performance
measures is consistent with its obligations to enable public scrutiny
of its achievements? Will the Office have another look at this,
with a view to achieving greater openness and transparency?
Answer: The FCO agrees all of our PSA performance scorecards
with the Treasury.
Under the 2002 Spending Review (SR), the FCO and Treasury
agreed to classify certain scorecards to ensure that the FCO's
strategy for achieving our targets would not be compromised, and
that the UK's position in international negotiations would not
be prematurely disclosed. If the FCO made public its negotiating
position, it would risk getting a worse deal for the UK in the
future. Some of the classified scorecards also contain sensitive
information, which, if made public would risk damaging UK's international
relations.
We do however recognise the importance of transparency in
order to allow proper public scrutiny of our performance and achievements.
We have therefore declassified the performance scorecard relating
to SR 02 PSA 7 which included our activity in respect of the Millennium
Development Goals. We were mindful that as time has elapsed the
risks to the UK's negotiating position have diminished.
Having learned from our experience following SR02, we sought
to reduce the number of classified scorecards underpinning our
SR04 PSA targets. Hence, only one of our SR04 PSA targets (PSA3
relating to NATO and European Security, shared with the Ministry
of Defence) is completely underpinned by classified scorecards.
To promote transparency, the FCO has also changed the way
in which we report against our targets. We will in future routinely
publish our unclassified scorecards and indicators alongside performance
assessments, starting with publication of the 2005 Autumn Performance
Report.
Question 23. Will the FCO publish the unclassified summary
of the Ling Report on Prism? If not, why not?
The unclassified summary of the Ling report on Prism has
now been published on the FCO Website.
Question 24. What changes have been made to FCO procedures
to avoid problems of the type experienced with Prism? Specifically,
what action has been taken in response to each of the 26 unclassified
recommendations made in the Ling Report?
Answer: All major ICT programmes are now required to
assess their performance against each of the recommendations in
the Ling report. The assessments are scrutinised by the FCO Investment
Committee and follow up action commissioned where deficiencies
have been identified. A report summarising the impact of the Ling
report on ICT programmes will be submitted to the FCO Board in
January 2006. The Future Firecrest Programme were the first to
carry out an assessment, a copy can be made available for the
FAC if required.
Sir Michael Jay KCMG
Permanent Under Secretary of State
22 November 2005
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