1 House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee Foreign and Commonwealth Office Performance and Finances Written Evidence This is a volume of submissions, relevant to the inquiry Foreign and Commonwealth Office Performance and Finances, which have been reported to the House. Only those submissions written specifically for the Committee have been included. 2 List of written evidence Page 1 Letter to the Committee Specialist from the Head of the Parliamentary Relations Team, Foreign and Commonwealth Office 3 2 Letter to the Clerk of the Committee from UK Trade & Investment 9 3 Foreign and Commonwealth Office Main Estimate 2010-11 Memorandum 18 4 Letter to the Chair from Simon Fraser CMG, Permanent Under Secretary of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office 24 5 Letter to the Chair from Mr Christopher Moxey, Chief Executive, FCO Services 31 6 Letter to the Chair from Martin Davidson, Chief Executive, British Council 33 7 Written evidence from the British Council 34 8 Written evidence from BBC World Service 38 9 Letter to the Chair from Rt Hon William Hague MP, First Secretary of State and Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, Foreign and Commonwealth Office 49 10 Letter to the Committee from Jeremy Dear, General Secretary, National Union of Journalists 52 11 Letter from Simon Fraser CMG, Permanent Under-Secretary of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office 54 12 Supplementary written evidence from the British Council 55 13 Letter to the Chair from Simon Fraser CMG, Permanent Under-Secretary of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office 56 14 Foreign and Commonwealth Office Winter Supplementary Estimate 2010-11 74 15 Letter to the Chair from Peter Horrocks, Director, BBC World Service 79 16 Supplementary written evidence from BBC World Service: BBC Urdu distribution problems in Pakistan 81 17 Written evidence from the National Audit Office 82 18 Supplementary written evidence from Simon Fraser CMG, Permanent Under- Secretary of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office 115 3 Letter to the Committee Specialist from the Head of the Parliamentary Relations Team, Foreign and Commonwealth Office In the memorandum which we sent to the Foreign Affairs Committee on 6 April we said that we would provide some further information on recommendations 36 and 46 in the FAC’s Report of 21 March. I am pleased to enclose this information which I hope you will find useful. RECOMMENDATION 36 We conclude that there appears to be significant scope for the FCO to improve its procurement practices. We recommend that in its response to this Report the FCO should update us on its progress in implementing its procurement improvement plan, and in particular set out whether all elements are now back on track for completion on time by February 2011. We further recommend that the FCO should provide its estimates for the savings achieved so far and likely to be achieved by the end of the project. FCO response: Following the FCO’s Procurement Capability Review (PCR) in September 2008, we recognised that the FCO had more opportunity to improve our procurement capability. In response to the PCR, a Procurement Improvement Plan (PIP) was agreed in February 2009. This set out a detailed range of activities and measures, with a clear set of milestones, to be overseen by a dedicated project manager, in order to address the issues identified and bring significant transformation to FCO’s procurement, over a period up to February 2011. The milestones included the recruitment of a new Commercial Director, a new Commercial Strategy and changes to the FCO’s procurement organisational structure. In March 2010 the Office of Government Commerce (OGC) conducted a 12-month milestone (stock take) assessment that focused on the progress made by the FCO against both its original PCR and its PIP – basically a half-way point in the change programme. We received the draft of the Report at the end of March. It sets out a positive position, concluding that during the first year solid foundations have been laid on which the FCO can build and continue to make improvements to its commercial and procurement capabilities, and which indicates that the programme is generally on track. The report highlights a number of particular points that demonstrate progress and development, the most notable of which are as follows: • FCO Board has demonstrated support for the development of our procurement capability by endorsing a commercial strategy and supporting the appointment of a new Commercial Director, as well as through the establishment of a Commercial Board that sets out a clear governance structure to oversee FCO’s procurement activities, to manage risk and to track progress against the commercial strategy. The recruitment of the new Commercial Director, supported by her senior team, has been instrumental in raising the profile of procurement and injecting vigour and pace in the implementation of the PIP with solid progress being made. • The procurement team was restructured and organised around teams that focused upon the FCO categories of procurement spend, prioritising the key categories. This was a radical change. As such there is a Category Team specifically working on Estates Category of Spend, one dealing with Security Category of spend, Travel category of spend and so on. This means the teams are aligned to the relevant FCO Directorates and embedded into them. Category management means truly understanding the business needs, managing demand, selecting the appropriate procurement approaches and managing the markets and supplier base to best serve these needs. • Improvements to the management and reporting of procurement performance and spend. 4 We currently estimate a cumulative saving, up to end of FY 09-10, of £15.3m. We cannot at this stage provide a projected estimate up to the end of FY 10-11, but we keep the cumulative savings figure under regular review and shall therefore be able to update the Committee at a later date. RECOMMENDATION 46 We recommend that in its response to this Report the FCO should provide a breakdown of its 2009 Staff Survey results between UK-based and locally-engaged staff, as it did for its 2008 Survey; or explain why this data was not produced, at a time when local staff morale is of particular importance. (Paragraph 206) FCO response: We are happy to provide you with the attached spreadsheets which show a breakdown of the 2009 Staff Engagement Survey results for UK-based and locally-engaged staff for all survey questions (Annex A). There is guidance at the top of each spreadsheet on how the data should be interpreted. The FCO took part in the newly launched Civil Service wide staff survey in 2009. The results are in the form of the percentage positive (strongly agree and agree), the percentage neutral (neither agree nor disagree) and negative responses (strongly disagree and disagree). For ease of interpretation, we have presented the findings (positive, neutral and negative) for UK- based staff separately from locally-engaged staff. The FCO places a great deal of importance in the staff survey results and we demonstrate that we act on what our staff have said. We achieved a response rate of 85%, which was a great achievement for an organisation with staff located across a global network. We achieved an Employee Engagement Index of 69%, which placed the FCO above the Civil Service benchmark (58%), above the High Performance benchmark (63%) and first among large Government departments (of more than 10,000 staff). The Employee Engagement Index measures advocacy, motivation and commitment to the organisation. Our locally-engaged staff are slightly more engaged (70%) than our UK-based staff (67%). This demonstrates that our locally-engaged staff are highly motivated and committed to the organisation. 17 May 2010 5 Annex A These results show the percentage of people who responded positively, negatively Notes: or neutrally to the questions among UK based staff. Most questions were asked on a five point scale (strongly agree, agree, neither agree nor disagree, disagree, strongly disagree) Please note that L01 and L03 are negatively worded questions. Please note that the neutral scores for L01 and L03 are for responses of 'prefer not to say'; for P10 neutral scores are for responses of 'Don't know'. The employee engagement index represents the level of engagement among staff and is made up of five questions (J50 - J54). Emplolyee Engagement Index 67% % Positive Neutral Negative responses responses responses Line Management A01 My manager motivates me to be more effective in my job 67 20 13 A02 My manager is considerate of my life outside work 77 15 8 A03 My manager is open to my ideas 84 10 6 A04 My manager helps me to understand how I contribute to the FCO/Post's objectives 64 25 11 A05 Overall, I have confidence in the decisions made by my manager 75 16 9 A06 My manager recognises when I have done my job well 81 12 7 A07 I receive regular feedback on my performance 62 21 17 A08 The feedback I receive helps me to improve my performance 64 25 10 A09 I think that my performance is evaluated fairly 68 22 10 A10 Poor performance is dealt with effectively in my team 48 34 17 Leadership and managing change B11 I feel the FCO/Post as a whole is managed well 50 25 25 B12 Senior managers in the FCO/Post are sufficiently visible 60 19 21 B13 I believe the actions of senior managers are consistent with the FCO/Post's values 56 27 16 B14 I believe the FCO Board has a clear vision for the future of the FCO/Post 36 37 27 B15 Overall, I have confidence in the decisions