House of Commons - Foreign and Commonwealth Office Annual Report 2007-08

Foreign and Commonwealth Office Annual Report 2007-08 - Foreign Affairs Committee Contents

8 TRANSPARENCY AND OPENNESS

181. In our last Report we expressed concern about the FCO's decision to end valedictory telegrams and recommended that this should be reversed, other than in respect of comments about the governments to which the outgoing Ambassadors or High Commissioners were accredited or comments likely to cause diplomatic embarrassment.[252] In response the Government stated that it had not banned valedictory telegrams but simply moved to "a more targeted distribution" to a "smaller group of contacts with a real interest in the issues under discussion".[253]

182. During our present inquiry we received a letter from a former diplomat, Sir Edward Clay (former High Commissioner to Kenya), expressing concern about Diplomatic Service Regulation (DSR) 5, introduced in a new form in 2006, which he claimed would prevent even former diplomats from publishing comments based on their experience in the FCO, without first gaining the Department's permission. He argued that such "gagging" would result in the loss of "informed expertise from public debate".[254]

183. We asked Sir Peter Ricketts about this issue when he gave oral evidence in October. He stated that that there had never been a ban on former diplomats drawing upon their experiences to write books and articles or speak in the media, but he also acknowledged that the FCO's previous guidance on this matter had been "too restrictive" and that the way the DSR was phrased was "not ideal".[255] He explained that, as a result, the guidance would be revised to clarify that former staff continue to have an obligation "to respect national security and to prevent damage to international relations", but that the FCO is content to "rely on the good sense and judgment of our former colleagues as to what they need to clear with us and what they can go ahead and use publicly on their own authority."[256]

184. The Public Administration Select Committee (PASC) has examined this matter as part of its wider inquiry into the publication of political memoirs. PASC exchanged letters with Sir Peter Ricketts and published a report in August 2008 which was critical of DSR 5. The report commented that:

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185. We welcome the FCO's decision to revise the wording of Diplomatic Service Rule 5 to ensure former diplomats are not prevented from making informed contributions to public debate on foreign policy issues.

Freedom of Information requests

186. In its Annual Report the FCO states that during 2007 it received 1,027 requests under the Freedom of Information (FoI) Act.[258] Of these, 43 generated requests for an internal review of the FCO's decision, compared to 72 in 2006, a reduction of 40% over the year. The number of complaints to the Information Commissioner's Office also fell from 50 in 2006 to 17 in 2007, equating to a 66% reduction on the previous year.

187. In last year's Report we commented on the steady improvement in the FCO's performance in meeting deadlines for FoI requests. The figures for 2007, which show a 98% success rate, suggest that this trend is being maintained.

188. The FoI Act provides that in certain circumstances the statutory 20-day period for response may be extended. The figures for 2007 show that the FCO use of 'permitted extensions' remained broadly similar to the 2006 figures.

189. We welcome the fact that the FCO continues to meet Freedom of Information requests in the vast majority of cases. We are also pleased to see that the number of referrals to the Information Commissioner's Office have reduced quite significantly.

Flow of information to the Committee

190. Among the documents, other than regular or routine publications, that we received over the last year without having to put in a request were:

— information relating to the FCO's new Strategic Framework;

— the NAO's Fourth Validation Compendium Report which summarised the results of the NAO's examination of the suitability of data systems used by the FCO for the purpose of measuring its performance against its PSA targets;

— results of the FCO's 2008 Stakeholder Survey;

— details of the FCO's Cultural Audit which we refer to in Chapter 7;

— 'More Foreign, Less Office', a document which summarises Change Management plans for FCO staff; and

— the FCO's Strategic Workforce plan which we refer to in Chapter 7.

191. We are grateful to the FCO for providing us with these and other documents. However, on a number of occasions the FCO has not provided us with information in a sufficiently timely manner. We give two examples below.

RENDITION

192. In our Overseas Territories Report of July 2008 we commented upon the FCO's approach to the issue of rendition and to allegations that detainees had been held on ships serviced from Diego Garcia.[259] We highlighted that in several instances the responses of FCO Ministers to our questions were unclear and failed properly to address the issues.[260] In February 2008, the Foreign Secretary apologised for inadvertently misleading the House of Commons and this Committee after it was discovered that US assurances about rendition flights turned out to be false. We propose to consider the issue of UK supervision of US activities in Diego Garcia in the context of our forthcoming inquiry into the FCO's annual human rights report.[261] We recommend that in future the FCO adopts a more open and proactive approach to providing information to us on rendition and related matters.

TOP RISKS REGISTER

193. We have continued to ask the FCO to share its Top Risks Register, particularly in light of the Government's decision to publish a national risk register.[262] However, this request continues to be refused—despite the fact that in 2006 we requested and received, in confidence, a copy of the Register. In the Foreign Secretary's most recent letter to us on this matter, he stated:

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During our oral evidence session in October 2008, we asked Sir Peter Ricketts if the FCO would re-consider its position. Sir Peter said that he had discussed the matter with the Foreign Secretary but that the FCO still had concerns about releasing the document to the Committee. He added:

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194. Sir Peter commented that the Top Risks Register is designed to allow staff to be as frank as possible "about the vulnerabilities and the risks that we are running in the organisation, both in our policy and as an organisation, such as the safety of our staff, the safety of our buildings and our resilience against terrorist attack."[265]

195. We understand the sensitive nature of the material contained in the FCO's Top Risks Register and note the FCO's concern that disclosure could inhibit frank discussion in the FCO. For these reasons we recommend that the FCO should make a copy of the Register available to us in confidence, as was done in 2006.

252 Foreign Affairs Committee, First Report of Session 2007-08, Foreign and Commonwealth Office Annual Report 2006-07, HC 50, para 208 Back

253 Ev 76 Back

254 Ev 91. Details of the changes to DSR 5 were given in a Written Statement by the then Foreign Secretary: HC Deb, 8 March 2006, col 62WS Back

255 Q 236 Back

256 Q 234 Back

257 Public Administration Select Committee, Fourteenth Report of Session 2007-08, Mandarins Unpeeled: Memoirs and Commentary by Former Ministers and Civil Servants (HC 664), para 24 Back

258 Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Foreign and Commonwealth Office Departmental Report 1 April 2007-31 March 2008, p74 Back

259 Foreign Affairs Committee, Seventh Report of Session 2007-08, Overseas Territories, HC 147-I, paras 52-60 Back

260 Ibid., paras 56 and 60 Back

261 Ibid., paras 56 and 60 Back

262 Ev 76 Back

263 Ev 100 Back