Letter to the Head, Parliamentary Relations
Team, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, from the Second Clerk of
the Committee
The Foreign Affairs Committee has now had an
opportunity to consider the Government's response to its Report
on the Foreign and Commonwealth Office Annual Report 2006-07.
The Committee has asked me to write with the following questions.
COMPREHENSIVE SPENDING
REVIEW SETTLEMENT
The Committee notes the Government's response
that the FCO's CSR baseline sums excluded RfR2 for Conflict Prevention,
together with in-year claims against the DEL Reserve, and that
this followed "standard Treasury practice". The Committee
is interested to know why conflict prevention is treated as one-off
or time-limited expenditure, given that the FCO will spend on
conflict prevention every year.
NEW STRATEGIC
FRAMEWORK
The Committee notes that the Government will
be allocating additional resources to its four new policy goals
and that this will mean reducing "the resources the FCO puts
into certain other issues [...] in particular in the areas of
sustainable development, science and innovation, and crime and
drugs". The Committee would like details of the level of
reductions in these and any other areas and an assessment of the
impact they will have.
PSA TARGETS
What progress is being made on developing indicators
for the Conflict PSA and for the PSAs to which the FCO is a major
contributor?
SHARED SERVICES
PROGRAMME
The Government's response did not address the
Committee's request that the FCO share the findings of the OGC
Gateway 0 review of the Shared Services Programme conducted in
May 2007. The Committee would like to repeat this request and
also to ask the FCO to share the findings of the further review
carried out by the OGC in early 2008.
LANGUAGE TRAINING
What feedback has the FCO received from staff
who have begun courses under the new outsourced language training
Framework Agreements? Can the FCO provide the Committee with details
of the system of quality control built into the Agreements?
FCO ESTATE IN
DUBLIN
The Committee would like a direct response to
its recommendation that the FCO should give a public update on
its latest plans for the Ambassador's residences in Dublin. The
Committee would also like to know who was responsible for taking
the decision to purchase Marlay Grange when it had not been possible
to carry out an invasive survey.
MANAGEMENT INFORMATION
1. The Committee welcomes the Government's
offer to share the following:
— details of the estates security programme
for the CSR 07 period;
— the joint FCO/IPS Outline Business
Justification;
— the results of UK visas' audits of
its commercial partners' data security procedures and results
of the cross-Government review of data security;
— updates on future plans for telephone
information services contracts;
— the outcomes and conclusions of the
pilots of tools for the evaluations framework of Public Diplomacy;
— the targets agreed with BBC World
Service for 2008 onwards;
and would like to confirm that it wishes to
receive this information.
However, the Committee is disappointed with
the Government's response in relation to systematically sharing
key management papers. The Chairman is writing separately to the
Foreign Secretary in relation to its request for sight of the
"Top Risks Register".
VALEDICTORY MESSAGES
The Committee would like details of the criteria
by which the "smaller group of contacts with a real interest
in the issues under discussion" are selected for receipt
of valedictory messages.
I would be most grateful to receive a response
to the questions above by 30 April 2008.
26 March 2008
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