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21 Jan 2009 : Column 1522W—continued
Departmental Data Protection
Mr. Vara: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what percentage of the IT systems in (a) his Department and (b) its agencies are fully accredited to the Government's security standards. [245386]
Gillian Merron: Currently 83 per cent. of the IT systems in the FCO and its agencies are fully accredited to the Government's security standards. The remaining 17 per cent. is being accredited in parallel to deployment.
Paul Holmes: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs how many members of staff have been (a) investigated, (b) suspended and (c) dismissed for losing (i) memory sticks, (ii) laptop computers, (iii) desktop computers and (iv) mobile telephones in each year since 1997. [247961]
Gillian Merron: Our records show that since 1997 no members of staff have been investigated, suspended or dismissed for loss of equipment.
Departmental Pay
Bob Spink: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make it his policy that temporary and permanent employees of his Department employed at the same grade receive the same hourly rate of pay. [248412]
Gillian Merron: The Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) pays staff whom it employs directly on temporary contracts exactly the same rates of pay as permanent members of staff.
Some temporary staff are supplied by agencies. These staff are employed and paid by the agency concerned, which then charges a fee to the FCO. Individual agencies determine the rates of pay for their agency staff.
Grant Shapps: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs how much has been spent by his Department on staff reward and recognition schemes in each of the last three years. [248711]
Gillian Merron: The Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) uses non-consolidated, non-pensionable bonuses to encourage high performance. We pay annual bonuses to staff in the delegated grades (all except senior managers) based on appraisal evidence of annual performance. The highest rating and bonus award is given only where performance has significantly exceeded challenging objectives and may have radically transformed delivery of policy and/or services.
Variable pay (bonus) arrangements for staff in the Senior Management Structure/Senior Civil Service (SMS/SCS) of the FCO follow a framework set centrally for Whitehall Departments by the Cabinet Office.
The total amounts spent by the FCO in the last three years are as shown in the following table:
| £ | |
Departmental Public Expenditure
Mr. Hague: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what the (a) underspend and (b) overspend on country budgets in his Department was in the last financial year for which figures are available, broken down by country. [242183]
David Miliband: The underspend and overspend, on administration budgets by country, for 2007-08 are shown in the following table. Programme budgets have not been included as they are not readily broken down by country and to do so would incur disproportionate cost.
| FCO table of overspends and underspends by country for the year to 31 March 2008 | ||
| £ | ||
| Country | Overspend | Underspend |
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