Letter to the Chairman of the Committee
from Sir Peter Ricketts KCMG, Permanent Under-Secretary, Foreign
and Commonwealth Office
PUBLICATION DATE
OF 2009 FCO DEPARTMENTAL
REPORT
The preparatory work to produce the 2009 FCO
Departmental Report is now well in hand. I wanted to let you know
as early as possible in the production process our thoughts on
a publication date.
The 2008 FCO Departmental Report was published in
May 2008. The 2009 Departmental Report will, for the first time,
also include our annual Resource Accounts. As I am sure you know,
the Treasury strongly encourages Departments to publish a combined
Departmental Report and Resource Accounts. Including the Resource
Accounts means that readers have a complete picture of what a
Department has done in the previous financial year and how it
has spent its money. It also means we can include an actual, rather
than a forecast, spend.
This does seem a sensible reform, and many other
Departments are doing it. It would mean however, that we could
not publish the 2009 Departmental Report in May, because it is
not possible to produce the Resource Accounts, clear them with
the NAO, and incorporate them in the lengthy design and publication
process by that date. The guidance to Departments from the Treasury
on the production of 2009 Departmental Reports recognises these
obstacles to a May publication date. The guidance states that
the 2009 deadline for publication of Departmental Reports which
include the Resource Accounts is the Parliamentary Summer Recess
i.e. 21 July. We would wish to publish our Departmental Report
a few weeks before this date to allow the Committee to have the
opportunity to read it before the Summer Recess. With that in
mind, we are aiming for a mid-June publication date.
1would be grateful to know whether the Committee
would be content with a June publication date in order to incorporate
our Resource Accounts.
27 January 2009
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