Letter to the Secretary of State for Foreign
and Commonwealth Affairs, Foreign and Commonwealth Office from
the Chairman of the Committee
INFORMATION-SHARING
At its last meeting, the Foreign Affairs Committee
considered your letter of 28 April 2008 about the FCO's Top Risks
Register. While we welcome the commitment to include further detail
on the issues covered in the Register in the Permanent Under-Secretary's
quarterly management letter, we are disappointed that the FCO
is unwilling to share this document with us, even on a classified
basis. We consider assessing whether the FCO has correctly identified
its Top Risks to be a key part of our scrutiny function. Withholding
this Register clearly limits us in this role. We will pursue this
issue further during the course of our inquiry into the FCO's
Annual Report 2007-08.
During our meeting we also considered a letter
from the Head of Select Committee Liaison at the FCO asking us
to treat Public Diplomacy Board minutes previously shared with
the Committee as if they had been classified as confidential.
I would like to confirm that we will respect this request. However,
we would be grateful if you could confirm that unredacted minutes
of the Board will continue to be sent to the Committee.
9 May 2008
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