Select committee: Public Accounts Committee
Recommendation 19
53rd Report - Cost of maintaining the FCDO’s overseas estate
Published 12 Nov 2025
Addressed to HM Treasury
Public Accounts Committee Cost of maintaining the FCDO’s overseas estate All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Recommendation (the committee's words)
Even if staff at posts start collecting estate data, FCDO faces a challenge collecting this data centrally so it can use it to manage its estate portfolio.50 FCDO uses a range of different IT systems to manage its estate. FCDO property data, for example, is stored on its Pyramid system, project data on its Pheonix system and finance data on a system named Hera.51 FCDO’s central IT systems have been developed separately and are not integrated with each other, or with systems at posts. FCDO also lacks the time series data necessary to support benchmarking or tracking of progress. FCDO told us that FCDO has been an organisation that holds data in individual spreadsheets, databases and paper files.52 This would imply that FCDO is using legacy IT systems which are more liable to cyber-attack. FCDO’s 2023–24 Annual Report and Accounts acknowledged risks around its data on the size and value of its estate and leases it holds, including problems collecting data from posts spread around the world.53
From: Public Accounts Committee, 53rd Report - Cost of maintaining the FCDO’s overseas estate (HC 884), 12 November 2025
Government response
Latest Treasury Minutes progress report to the Committee of Public Accounts on the Fifty-third Report of Session 2024-26
The government responded to the whole report on 4 June 2026 (deadline 12 January 2026).
Treasury minutes: Government response to the Committee of Public Accounts on the Fifth-third report from Session 2024-26
Published 19 January 2026.
Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.The government states that it "agrees with the Committee's recommendation" on each of the report's recommendations, and reports some as implemented and others with target dates.
- On estate strategy, the government agrees; an Overseas Network Review fully launching in January 2026 will look at the overall size and shape of the FCDO footprint, and the estates strategy is "due to be updated next in Spring 2026".
- On the maintenance backlog, the government agrees; the Overseas Estate Department is developing a more robust approach to its annual programme of works, with a target implementation date of end March 2029, and it will write to the Committee within six months categorising buildings by risk.
- On governance, the government agrees; a new Estates Committee was established in October 2025 and will meet quarterly, and an external review of the operating model and project delivery is due in Spring 2026.
- On lessons learned from capital projects, the government agrees; the FCDO "is re-establishing a comprehensive lessons-learned process across all capital projects", with a target implementation date of March 2026.