Asked by: Jon Trickett (Labour - Hemsworth)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Minister for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, how many times officials from his Department have visited the Amulsar gold mine in the last five years.
Answered by Christopher Pincher
The British Ambassador to Yerevan at the time visited the Amulsar gold mine in Armenia for the ground-breaking ceremony in 2016.
Asked by: Jon Trickett (Labour - Hemsworth)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Minister for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, how many visits to the British Embassy in Yerevan (a) employees and (b) representatives of the company Lydian International made in the last five years, including at official dinners.
Answered by Christopher Pincher
Our Embassy in Yerevan does not hold comprehensive figures on visitors to the Embassy over the last five years. A key role of our Embassies around the world is to engage with businesses active in the local market.
Asked by: Jon Trickett (Labour - Hemsworth)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, which public appointments he is responsible for.
Answered by Christopher Pincher
The public appointments that the department is responsible for making are set out in the Schedule to the Public Appointments Order in Council 2019. https://publicappointments.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/2019-Public-Appointments-Order-In-Council.pdf
Asked by: Jon Trickett (Labour - Hemsworth)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, how much time off in lieu has been taken by staff in his Department in each of the last five years.
Answered by Christopher Pincher
The Foreign & Commonwealth Office does not hold this information because time-off-in-lieu (TOIL) is not recorded centrally and is managed by individual teams, particularly overseas.
Asked by: Jon Trickett (Labour - Hemsworth)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what estimate he has made of the total amount of unpaid overtime worked by staff in his Department in the last 24 months.
Answered by Alan Duncan
The Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) does not hold this information because we do not record total hours worked for any of our staff. This is managed by individual teams, particularly overseas.
Wellbeing is a key priority in the FCO, and we recognise the importance of staff maintaining a good work life balance and not regularly working beyond their conditioned hours. Wellbeing Confident Leadership workshops have already been delviered to 67 per cent of our Senior Civil Servant and Senior Management Structure staff, with the remainder expected to complete the training by the end of the year.
Where staff are consistently exceeding their conditioned hours, managers are expected to take steps to ensure that staff are not overstretched, and that they are not exceeding the limits set out in the 1998 Working Time Regulations. However, at times, staff may be asked to work above their conditioned hours to deliver priority work, and will be paid overtime in line with our overtime policies.
Asked by: Jon Trickett (Labour - Hemsworth)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, how many people working on the Technology Overhaul programme are (a) contingent labour, (b) supplier resource and (c) civil servants.
Answered by Alan Duncan
Technology Overhaul is a £120 million Information Technology programme in the Government's major projects portfolio (GMPP), aimed at transforming the way staff across the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and its overseas Posts use technology. There are currently 12 people working as contingent labour, 15 from supplier resources and 6 civil servants working on the programme.
Asked by: Jon Trickett (Labour - Hemsworth)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what the value of contracts held by his Department with (a) Deloitte, (b) Slaughter and May and (c) Mott MacDonald is in the last two years.
Answered by Alan Duncan
Authority to enter into contracts is devolved to directorates and departments within the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in London as well as the global network of overseas missions. To provide the requested data would incur disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Jon Trickett (Labour - Hemsworth)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, how many staff in his Department have been transferred from direct employment by his Department to employment by Interserve in the last two years.
Answered by Alistair Burt
No staff in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office have been transferred from direct employment to employment by Interserve in the last two years.
Asked by: Jon Trickett (Labour - Hemsworth)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, pursuant to the corrected Answer of 22 January 2019 to Question 206251, how many civil servants in his Department were working part or full-time on projects in the Government Major Projects Portfolio in (a) June 2016 and (b) December 2018.
Answered by Alistair Burt
The number of full-time equivalent staff working on projects in the Government Major Projects Portfolio was 11.8 in June 2016 and 18.1 in December 2018.
Asked by: Jon Trickett (Labour - Hemsworth)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, whether his Department has received representations from the the Crown Commercial Service on the financial health of the strategic supplier Interserve.
Answered by Alistair Burt
The Foreign and Commonwealth Office maintains an ongoing dialogue with the Cabinet Office, including the Crown Commercial Service (CCS), in relation to the ongoing management of all major suppliers, including Interserve, accessed through CCS frameworks.
As set out in the Strategic Supplier Risk Management Policy, supplier risk ratings are not published by Government but are made available by the Cabinet Office to in scope organisations on request.