CONTINGENCY PLANNING
Letter to the Chairman of the Committee
from the Permanent Under Secretary of State, Foreign and Commonwealth
Office
FLU PANDEMIC:
FCO BUSINESS CONTINUITY
AND CONTINGENCY
PLANNING
When I appeared before you recently to give
evidence on the FCO Departmental Report, you made clear that the
Committee would welcome more information on the key management
issues facing us. Given its topicality, I thought you would be
interested in our preparations for a possible human flu pandemic.
The FCO, along with other government departments,
is revising its business continuity and contingency plans to respond
to the threat of a pandemic. In developing our plans we are working
closely with the Department of Health, Defra, DFID and other government
departments within the framework set by the Civil Contingencies
Secretariat of the Cabinet Office. We are also keeping in close
touch with other British organisations with large overseas networks,
including British companies.
We have established contacts with key partners,
for example EU Member States, the US, Australia, Canada, New Zealand
and Japan, to encourage closer international cooperation on prevention
and preparedness and also to ensure we are in step with others,
for example, on providing consular assistance for our nationals.
Central to our contingency planning is a programme
of action to help us to continue delivering services to the public,
particularly the estimated 15 million British nationals resident
and travelling overseas, at a time when our staff are as likely
to succumb to a pandemic virus as others. This will be a considerable
challenge.
We are planning to enhance significantly our
remote working capacity to help us to continue to operate, at
home and overseas. This should also be of longer-term benefit
in terms of business continuity. However consular work presents
a particular challenge as it generally involves face-to-face contact.
In a pandemic our ability to work in this way would inevitably
be constrained. To maximise our capability to maintain business
critical services, and to provide our staff and families overseas
with healthcare equivalent to that available to the UK population
under the National Health Service, we are putting in place additional
support for our staff. We have already procured stocks of Tamiflu
anti-virals for our posts in the Asia-Pacific region. We now want
to extend the supply of anti-virals to posts in the rest of the
world.
Even with additional health measures in place
some staff and families, for example those in high-risk medical
categories, and those with young, elderly or frail dependants
in the UK, may wish to return to this country in the event of
a pandemic. FCO ministers have therefore accepted the principle
of offering voluntary evacuation to staff and families overseas,
if the situation deteriorates, with the clear caveat that
reducing staff numbers to a level below that needed to fulfil
business critical tasks, would be very much a last resort. We
have asked Regional Directors and Heads of Mission to draw up
contingency plans, by the end of November, which strike a balance
between public service commitment and duty of care to staff, and
taking account of local circumstances.
In close liaison with DH and the Government
Communications Network, we will be working to ensure realistic
expectations on the part of the British public and British nationals
overseas of what consular assistance and other activity we could
in practice deliver during a flu pandemic, not least given the
likely constraints on international travel, and advising them
how best to look after their own health and safety. We already
have an Avian Influenza fact sheet on our website (I enclose the
current version). This will be updated regularly as the situation
changes, as will our travel advice.
While the Department of Health clearly has the
Whitehall lead on planning for a flu pandemic, the FCO is involved
in a wide range of avian influenza and pandemic related activity,
in particular in our EU Presidency capacity. We decided that the
most efficient way to bring together the different areas of activity
would be to set up a programme with a virtual team of staff or
project managers from relevant departments across the organisation.
This has made best use of existing resources rather than creating
new positions and structures. I see it as a good example of the
sort of cross-cutting teamwork, coordinated by one additional
member of staff, which we increasingly need to use to maximise
the impact of our work within tightly constrained resources.
I would be happy to provide further information,
as our planning develops, if Members of the Committee would find
this useful.
Sir Michael Jay KCMG
Permanent Under Secretary of State
16 November 2005
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