Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, how much his Department spent from the Continuity of Education Allowance on placements at (a) Eton, (b) Charterhouse, (c) Harrow, (d) Rugby, (e) Shrewsbury, (f) Westminster, (g) Winchester, (h) St Paul's and (i) Merchant Taylors schools in the last financial year for which data is available.

Members of the diplomatic service are expected to be widely deployable throughout their career. Whilst many parents prefer to take their children with them abroad, in some of the 168 countries and territories where the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) has UK-based staff, we do not permit staff to take their children either for health or security reasons. However, frequent moves by staff and families between the United Kingdom and overseas, and between Posts overseas, can be disruptive to the education of the children. Therefore, the FCO provides Continuity of Education Allowance (CEA). This enables staff who meet certain eligibility criteria to choose to provide an uninterrupted education for their children at a British boarding school in the United Kingdom while they continue to take up postings overseas at regular intervals during their career. CEA is a long-standing FCO policy dating back in its current form to 1996 that provides clearly defined and limited financial support to staff to help maintain the continuity of their children's education.The FCO refunds standard term fees up to a ceiling which is reviewed annually. Where staff opt to send their children to more expensive schools, the difference in cost is met by the individual member of staff.

The figures below represent the data for financial year 2018/19. For context, we have set out the FCO's total spend on education for children of staff posted overseas in PQ 752.