The Rt Hon Sir Richard Ottaway MP Foreign Affairs Committee House of Commons. [by ] 16 July 2014 QUARTERLY UPDATE ON FCO MANAGEMENT ISSUES

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1 Sir Simon Fraser KCMG Permanent Under-Secretary of State Foreign & Commonwealth Office King Charles Street London SW1A 2AH The Rt Hon Sir Richard Ottaway MP Foreign Affairs Committee House of Commons Tel: Fax: [by ] 16 July 2014 QUARTERLY UPDATE ON FCO MANAGEMENT ISSUES I am writing with the latest quarterly update covering the period April to June This quarter we have seen the successful delivery of our first major event of the summer, the laying of our accounts before Parliament and considerable progress in our plans for an overhaul of our IT. POLICY The Global Summit to End Sexual Violence in Conflict took place from June at the Excel Centre in London. It placed the issue of sexual violence in conflict firmly on the international peace and security agenda. Ministerial discussions were informed by experts discussions and 175 Fringe events were open to the public. In addition to over 125 country delegations, over 80 of which were led at a Ministerial level, the Fringe was attended by thousands of members of the public. The Summit hashtag (#TimeToAct) trended on Twitter globally periodically throughout the Summit. We are now working hard on preparations for the other set-piece events of The Commonwealth Games begin on 23 July and the NATO Summit, the largest Summit ever held in the UK, which will take place from 4-5 September in Wales. Following the soft launch of the Diplomatic Academy in Leadership Week, we continue to make progress towards full opening in early A clear timetable has been set for the development of curricula for all 11 faculties. The development of the physical space is also progressing well and some of the rooms will be ready in time

2 for the new graduate entrants induction in November. Work is also being done to put in place the Academy s digital offering to staff, particularly those at Post. There remains considerable interest in the Academy, both within and outside the FCO. Useful links are being forged with business, trade groups, other parts of Government and training providers. On the international front, there has been interest from the US and Canada, and a commitment to work together with the Caribbean Diplomatic Academy was made at the UK/Caribbean Ministerial forum. PEOPLE During this quarter we undertook a review of our Strategic Workforce Plan for We are on track to deliver the leaner, more affordable, flexible, diverse and skilled workforce we said we would by To ensure that we continue to deliver, we plan to build further flexibility into our appointments processes so that Directorates can recruit the right people into business critical roles. We have now launched a pilot in four Directorates to help support those newly recruited to critical roles by providing coaching and mentoring with senior staff. We will review the outcome of the pilot in the late autumn. Diversity and Inclusion were key themes at our Leadership Conference which took place in May. There were a number of short presentations throughout the two days, including from our Local Staff Advisory Group and the Staff Associations, highlighting the benefits of a diverse and inclusive FCO to our returning Heads of Mission and senior leaders in London. We are also working up radical proposals which could improve diversity in the FCO, which will be considered by the FCO Management Board in September. In May, we launched a review of our Promotions Models, with a view to making our HR polices simpler and fairer, and to giving due weight to skills and experience. We are consulting widely in the organisation and will present recommendations to the Management Board in September. Our existing promotions processes will continue for this financial year. In our last promotion round for A band staff, twenty four candidates were successful and will now move to B band roles. We have also introduced talent management and appraisal validation for the first time at Band D, alongside the existing SMS process. This is a tool to identify the potential and performance of all staff at this grade, and tailor their learning accordingly. It is also a mechanism through which we will be able to reach out to talent from under-represented groups, and offer them targeted development opportunities to prepare for promotion, should this be their aspiration. 2

3 ESTATES AND THE OVERSEAS NETWORK Major works on the second and third floors of King Charles Street (KCS) have now started under the UK Estate Reform Project. Measures to manage disruption to staff remaining in KCS and ensure business continuity have worked well so far. The project is due to be completed in late 2015, when all FCO staff in London will be on one site in KCS and the OAB will be handed over to the Department for Education. I am personally leading the FCO relationship with the contractor Mace. I attach an annex of property sales and purchases completed in 2013/14. I would be grateful if you would continue to keep this information in strict confidence due to the commercial sensitivities. And I add the caveat that the future sales programme is subject to change. On the Network Shift, we continue to work towards the opening of our new Consulate General in Wuhan and Deputy High Commission in Chandigarh. Chandigarh is now operational, but the opening of the permanent office has been delayed as we await the necessary approval from the Indian authorities. Following the success of the upgrade of our trade offices in Hyderabad and Chandigarh, the Foreign Secretary announced our plans to upgrade our trade office in Ahmadabad, Gujarat, during his recent visit to India. This will now become a Deputy High Commission headed by a British diplomat. The Network Board continues to drive forward the One HMG Overseas agenda to make efficiencies and increase the UK s impact overseas. Following the decision by DFID to withdraw from Corporate Services functions overseas, work is underway through a joint programme team to complete the handover of responsibilities by April The Network Board has also agreed guidelines for One HMG Leadership Boards in Posts overseas, which will have a vital role in ensuring service standards are met and value for money is achieved. Progress continues on harmonisation, which aims to ensure that the packages HMG offers its staff overseas are fair, reduce bureaucracy and offer greater value for the taxpayer. Given that harmonisation deals with pay and terms and condition, this is amongst the most difficult areas of the One HMG Overseas agenda. The Network Board also agreed a new cost-sharing agreement on 10 July which sets out arrangements for , with further work needed, as part of preparations for the Spending Review, on longer-term cost sharing. The security challenges to our network remain at a high level. We continue to monitor the threats carefully, and manage the risks rigorously. This quarter has seen deep, rapid advances into Iraq by the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) which have changed the security scene for our Posts there and potentially shifted the axis of the Islamic extremist terrorist threat globally. Our Embassy has strong 3

4 defences and resilience, but the security risks in Baghdad are significant. We have put in place a series of contingency measures. The tempo of security incidents also remains high in Afghanistan, Somalia, Libya, and Yemen, all countries where we have high threat security regimes, including armoured vehicles and close protection teams, and severely limited staff movements as part of our risk mitigation. In Kenya, continued Al Shabaab activity means the security situation is unlikely to improve in the short term. As part of this, the number of our staff and dependants in Nairobi will be lowered over time, for example as we locate slots with regional responsibilities elsewhere. FINANCES The FCO s Annual Report and Accounts for 2013/14 were laid before Parliament on 1 July. They were approved without qualification by the National Audit Office and confirmed that the FCO spent within 1% of its budget meeting our Diplomatic Excellence targets. In 2013/14, 312 million of FCO spending was classed as Official Development Assistance 14% above the target of 273 million. INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY We continue to work with our new IT suppliers, BAE Systems and Computacenter, to ensure we see the full benefit of their expertise. The FCO Board will be looking at worked-up plans to overhaul our global IT this month. Based on extensive engagement throughout the organisation, the proposals draw on the expertise and fresh approach of our new suppliers. They cover not just modernisation of our equipment, but a significant improvement to the resilience of the global IT network, better capability to work on the move and a new easy to use document registration and retrieval system. We have over the past quarter successfully rolled out better IT connections to a number of Posts and continue work to improve IT reliability and stability across the network. The new FCO intranet is now starting to go live, with a new more capable Directory being rolled out in July. The project to upgrade our Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system, Prism, by November 2014 continues on track. We use this to pay staff, suppliers and provide Management Information. Simon Fraser 4

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