Asked by: Chris Leslie (The Independent Group for Change - Nottingham East)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, with reference to page 104 of his Department's Annual Report and Accounts 2013-14, HC17, what the amount spent was on each instance of contractor, consultancy and fee-based services expenditure totalling more than £1,000.
Answered by David Lidington
This information is not held centrally and could only be provided at disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Chris Leslie (The Independent Group for Change - Nottingham East)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, with reference to page 104 of his Department's Annual Report and Accounts 2013-14, HC 17, what the amount spent was on each instance of business hospitality expenditure totalling more than £500.
Answered by David Lidington
This information is not held centrally and could only be provided at disproportionate cost.Asked by: Chris Leslie (The Independent Group for Change - Nottingham East)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, with reference to page 104 of his Department's Annual Report and Accounts 2013-14, HC 17, what the reasons are for the £8.74 million expenditure listed under other expenditure.
Answered by David Lidington
The £8.74 million expenditure listed under ‘other expenditure’ on page 104 of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office's Annual Report and Account 2013-14 is made up of a large number of miscellaneous programme-related costs such as minor maintenance and repairs, and some locally engaged staff costs. These payments do not fit into the other categories listed on page 104, but individually are not large enough to report as separate lines. The sum listed under 'other expenditure' for 2013-14 is lower than in the previous year.Asked by: Chris Leslie (The Independent Group for Change - Nottingham East)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, with reference to page 104 of his Department's Annual Report and Accounts 2013-14, HC 17, what the amount spent was on each instance of property rental expenditure totalling more than £5,000.
Answered by David Lidington
During 2013-14, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) paid rental, service and condominium charges for properties in the UK and overseas totalling £83,067,963, of which:
Residential accommodation incorporates the rental, service and condominium charges for all FCO staff working overseas, including staff working for Partners Across Government on the FCO overseas network. Non-residential accommodation incorporates the rental, service and condominium charges for offices and ancillary buildings. Any contracts over £10,000 can be found at http://www.gov.uk/contracts-finder.
To break these figures down further would incur disproportionate costs and payments to private landlords would not be provided as this would be commercially sensitive.
Asked by: Chris Leslie (The Independent Group for Change - Nottingham East)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, with reference to note 19 on page 106 of the British Council's Annual Report, 2013-14, what the reasons were for the losses and special payments.
Answered by Lord Swire
As stated in the British Council's Annual Report, during the year ended 31 March 2014, the British Council made no payments that fall within the category of special payments as defined in Managing Public Money.
The losses referenced in the Annual Report fall into three major categories:
1) £1.9m worth of claims waived or abandoned. This included a write off of £1.7m worth of fees for work done in 2011-12. These fees were owed by education institutions in a country where the deteriorating political and security situation meant they are not likely to be recoverable in the foreseeable future. £0.4m of this was provided for in the year to March 2013 and only the balance was charged in the year ended March 2014. The debt was part of the Council’s full cost recovery work and no grant-in-aid funds were involved. Approval was sought from HMT and granted.
2) £540k worth of fruitless payments. This included:
a) £402k (122 cases) of historic contract balances from 2007 to 2010 in relation to funds granted to beneficiaries under the Youth in Action agreement, which were deemed ineligible for reimbursements to the British Council by the European Union. These were provided for in the year to 31 March 2013.
b) £137k in relation to a final court judgement of damages due from a long running court case in the UAE about a failed premises project that concluded in January 2014.
3) £170k worth of cash losses. This included net losses from frauds in Kenya and Senegal disclosed in the Governance Statement on page 54 of the Annual Report.
Asked by: Chris Leslie (The Independent Group for Change - Nottingham East)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, which 10 consultancy firms were paid the most by his Department in the last financial year; and how much each of those firms was paid.
Answered by David Lidington
For the past financial year (2013-2014) the 10 organisations paid most by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) for consultancy and the associated spend figures were as follows: ORGANISATION FOR ECONOMIC CO-OPERATION & DEVELOPMENT (OECD) £285,579.00 DLA PIPER UK LLP £148,283.34 CBRE LTD £103,412.14 FIELD FISHER WATERHOUSE £52,940.75 FONNEGRA GERLEIN S.A £50,745.43 SAMSON AND MCGRATH £34,136.41 ACCENTURE (UK) LTD £29,892.00 DTZ CONSULTING AND RESEARCH £28,700.00 HOGAN LOVELLS INTERNATIONAL LLP £26,153.81 HERBERT SMITH FREEHILLS £21,061.27Asked by: Chris Leslie (The Independent Group for Change - Nottingham East)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, which five companies were used most often to provide temporary workers for his Department in the last financial year; and how much in agency fees was paid to each of them.
Answered by David Lidington
All contingent labour (provision of temporary workers) procured by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office is provided by Hayes Specialist Recruitment. In the last financial year (2013/14) £476,000 was paid to Hays in agency fees.