19th Special Report - Delivering Global Britain: FCO Skills: Government response to the Committee's Fourteenth Report

This is the government's response, published 8 February 2019.

Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.

The Government accepts some recommendations on skills, such as a skills audit and a review of handovers, but disagrees with extending open recruitment and has no current plans for a two-week training margin.

• On a skills audit, it says one "will take place as soon as possible once the Atlas Enterprise Resource Planning System is in place", and that the FCO "considers that it should be possible to complete an audit by the end of 2020", later than the Committee's end-2019 date.
• On open recruitment, it disagrees with "the thrust of the Committee’s argument" and has "no plans" to open up jobs such as Deputy Heads of Mission as a matter of course, but will review the three planned open competitions and share the review with the Committee "in due course".
• On handovers, it agrees "with the recommendation to review our approach", but has "no current plans" for a mandatory two-week training margin, citing varying individual and operational needs and "significant cost".
• On languages, it is assessing how to increase speakers and languages taught, with results informing a bid in the "forthcoming Spending Review", and says the Permanent Under-Secretary "will continue to report regularly" on attainment.

Read the government's response ↗ Report an error