Recommendation 26

The NAO report highlighted that FCDO has not produced a workforce plan to understand and address capacity and capability issues either in ESND or at posts.72 FCDO told us that while it has skilled professionals in property based in the UK, a big area of its focus is how to upskill its country-based workforce. FCDO considers it likely that this upskilling will be a mixture of training existing staff and recruiting externally, depending on local labour markets. FCDO told us that it is working towards a workforce strategy for the whole estate to address its gaps in skills and capabilities around the world. FCDO told us that it will be developing a workforce strategy which will focus on what skills are necessary at a post, the expertise it can deploy regionally and the expertise it can hold centrally to be able to provide the advice that posts need.73 72 C&AG’s report, para 2.20 73 Qq 53-56 17