1 INTRODUCTION
1. Since 1981 the Foreign Affairs Committee has conducted
an annual inquiry into the expenditure plans of the Foreign and
Commonwealth Office (FCO), and into wider administrative matters
relating to the FCO. In 1991, Government Departments first began
publishing annual Departmental reports setting out their work
for that year and expenditure plans for the future. Since that
time the Committee, like most other Departmental select committees,
has used these reports as a basis for its scrutiny of the FCO's
administration and expenditure. This Report continues this annual
series of inquiries, examining the FCO's Annual Report for the
period 1 April 2007 to 31 March 2008.[1]
2. In our Report on the FCO's 2006-07 Annual Report
we commented and made recommendations on a wide range of issues.[2]
These included the FCO's Comprehensive Spending Review settlement,
its performance against efficiency and Public Service Agreement
targets, its role in conflict resolution and the work of the overseas
network. We also considered the work of British Council and the
BBC World Service.
3. This year a key area of interest has been the
new Strategic Framework which has been adopted by the FCO and
which has guided its work since April 2008. Our Report is structured
to reflect this new framework. In addition to returning to many
of the issues we have scrutinised previously, we also focus on
the introduction of a new series of performance targets for the
FCO which will apply between 2008 and 2011; address a range of
personnel-related issues; and consider the work of FCO Services
and its transformation to a Trading Fund.
4. As part of our inquiry we have taken oral evidence
on three occasions: on 9 July 2008 from Chris Moxey, Chief Executive,
Clive Heaphy, Finance Director, and Steven Rymell, ICT Director,
FCO Services, accompanied by Keith Luck, Director General, Finance,
FCO; on 15 October from Rt Hon Lord Kinnock of Bedwellty, Chair,
Martin Davidson, Chief Executive, and Bidesh Sarkar, Director
of Resources, British Council, and Nigel Chapman, Director, and
Richard Thomas, Chief Operating Officer and Finance Director,
BBC World Service; and on 29 October 2008 from Sir Peter Ricketts,
Permanent Under-Secretary (PUS), James Bevan, Director General,
Change and Delivery, and Keith Luck, Director General, Finance,
FCO. We are grateful to them for their evidence.
5. Over the last year we have received a considerable
amount of written evidence. We are grateful to all the individuals
and organisations who took the time to submit their views. As
well as receiving quarterly management letters from Sir Peter
Ricketts, we also initiated correspondence with the FCO on a variety
of aspects of its finance and administration. We extend our thanks
to staff in the FCO's Parliamentary Relations Team for their assistance
in dealing with the considerable volume of correspondence between
us and the FCO.
6. We wish to note that in addition to our formal
evidence sessions, our programme of visits to overseas posts and
informal meetings both at home and abroad enable us to canvass
views and opinions from Ministers and officials in the FCO and
its agencies, and those of external interested parties including
the local users of the services provided by Posts. We are grateful
to all those who have provided us with helpful feedback.
Form of the Departmental Annual
Report and related papers
7. The FCO's Annual Report was published in May 2008.
At 182 pages, it is a similar length to the 2006-07 report. Part
one is sensibly arranged by the three elements of the FCO's new
Strategic Framework (see para 9 below) and includes a helpful
section on how the FCO's new framework relates to its Public Service
Agreements (PSAs). Part two considers the FCO's corporate governance,
communication and public diplomacy work, and change programmes.
Part three contains a section reporting progress on meeting Spending
Review 2004 (SR04) efficiency targets, core financial tables and
tables on performance against CSR04 PSA targets. A summary table
at the end shows the rating given for each target over the last
two years, both for annual reports and for Autumn Performance
Reports.[3]
8. We have also received a number of other documents
from the FCO which related to its financial performance and its
expenditure proposals. These include the FCO's Supplementary Estimates
Memoranda, in which the FCO explains why it is seeking approval
of changes in the spending plans already agreed.
1 Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Departmental
Report 1 April 2007-31 March 2008, Cm 7398, May 2008 Back
2
Foreign Affairs Committee, First Report of Session 2007-08, Foreign
and Commonwealth Annual Report 2006-07, HC 50 Back
3
Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Departmental Report 1 April 2007-31
March 2008, pp 171-173 Back
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