Appendix 2 - Supplementary questions and
answers
Supplementary questions from the Committee
Thank you for coming to give evidence to the Environmental
Audit Committee's inquiry into the FCO. We trust that you found
the consequent report interesting, and we look forward to receiving
the Government's response in a few week's time. Nevertheless,
although this inquiry has now concluded, Members of the Committee
felt that it would be useful to obtain some further information
relating to staff secondments in overseas posts.
Members of the Committee have on a number of occasions
met FCO overseas staff charged with forwarding UK environmental
and sustainable development objectives. Members have found that
many of these staff are on secondment from external organisations
including extractive companies and non-governmental organisations.
As the Committee did not receive any information
on this issue during the course of the inquiry, we felt that it
would be helpful to explore further this issue with yourself.
We seek to identify the proportion of overseas staff with environmental
or sustainable development responsibilities that are seconded
from external organisations. We would also like to identify the
number of secondments taken from extractive industries, environmental
or other charitable organisations, and other sectors.
The Committee would be grateful if you could ask
your Department to collate the relevant information, and to inform
the Committee of its findings.
19 June 2007
Letter from the Rt Hon Lord Malloch-Brown, Minister
of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office
Thank you for your letter of 19 June to Ian McCartney
regarding the number of seconded staff we have working here at
the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO). I am replying as Minister
responsible for sustainable development.
Seconding staff into and out of the FCO allows people
from different organisations to learn from each other and share
good practice, ideas and experience as well as developing expertise
within the FCO. Because interchange and secondments - whether
to or from other government Departments, international organisations,
the private sector, non-governmental organisations or charities
- develop skills and broaden experience, they help the FCO to
deliver better services to our customers whilst external organisations
gain a useful insight into how we work. Indeed, the Professional
Skills for Government framework makes undertaking a secondment
a requirement for all staff as they reach more senior levels of
the FCO.
We currently have more than 190 secondees to the
FCO, the vast majority of whom are from other government departments.
We have 4 secondees from outside government, from Hewlett Packard,
E3G, the European Parliament, and the House of Commons, all of
whom are based in the UK. However, the FCO is increasingly recruiting
staff on a permanent basis from the private sector, bringing with
them new ideas and experience to further broaden and develop the
expertise of staff within the FCO. The FCO also regularly seconds
staff to a small number of companies, for example Shell, Unilever
and Lehman Brothers.
As at 1 July 2007, the FCO has 23 staff on loan from
the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra)
and 11 from the Department for International Development (DfID).
Of these, 15 are working on sustainable development and environment
issues (12 from Defra, 3 from DfID), with 8 of those at Post overseas
(7 from Defra, 1 from DfID). There is also a secondee from a
not-for-profit organisation who is working on environmental issues.
One member of FCO staff is on interchange to Defra.
These figures do not include FCO staff who may be
working on environmental issues in UKT1, or whilst on special
unpaid leave (SUPL) or career breaks. Nor do they include staff
from other Government Departments who may be working on environmental
issues in joint units such as the Sudan Unit or others who may
be paid from Programme Budgets.
As the Committee will be aware from its inquiry,
Sustainable Development (SD) is included in the work of the FCO
as one of our 10 International Strategic Priorities. We are confident
that through our regular SD training modules, our recently developed
SD extranet site, our revamped newsletter, and our forthcoming
interactive SD e-learning package, our staff are all fully aware
of the importance of sustainable development in achieving our
foreign policy objectives. We are also confident that they are
empowered with the right skills to take these objectives forward.
The FCO fully recognises the importance of having
the right mix of skills and expertise available to us. We will
continue our efforts to encourage an effective mix of generalist
FCO staff, FCO staff with a higher level of expertise in environmental
and climate issues, and secondees from other Government Departments,
supplemented as necessary by external expertise, in support of
the Government's international environmental objectives.
25 July 2007
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