Question to the Department for International Development:

To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, how many requests for the use of its services have been (a) received and (b) granted by the Stabilisation Unit from each Department, by year, since 2010.

In FY 2016/17 the SU responded to over 323 specific requests for support. This included 28 military exercises and 20 training courses to participants from 25 government departments and organisations. In addition, the National School of Government International conducted 58 short term interventions in support of departments such as HMRC, the Government Communication Service, and DFID as well as Foreign Partner Governments in NSC priority countries.

The SU’s deployments to deliver those tasks that can be disaggregated by Department were: Foreign and Commonwealth Office – 126; Department for International Development – 45; Ministry of Defence 12, in addition to support to 28 military exercises; Home Office – 3; HMRC – 1; multilateral institutions, including UN, OSCE, NATO and the EU at the request of the FCO – 52. Other activity relates to cross-government requests and cannot be disaggregated by Department. We improved our information systems for 2016/17 and do not hold consistent information on tasks granted for previous years.

We do not hold detailed information on tasks requested but not granted, although we are now collecting this for 2017/18.

We would be happy to send more detailed information to the Honourable Member.