Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, with reference to the letter of 13 June 2023 from the Minister for Development and Africa to the Chair of the International Development Committee on the provisional statistics on international development for 2022, since which year his Department has offered the working-level ODA learning day to all Government Departments spending Official Development Assistance; which Government Departments attended the working-level ODA learning day delivered by his Department in (a) May 2023 and (b) each of the previous years in which his Department offered that learning day; and how many officials, at which grades, of each of those Departments attended that learning day in (i) May 2023 and (ii) each of the previous years in which his Department offered that learning day.

The Official Development Assistance (ODA) learning day in May 2023 was attended by around 100 working level officials across government ranging from grades AO to G6. All ODA spending departments were invited which included: Conflict Stability and Security Fund (CSSF), Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), Department for Environment Food & Rural Affairs (DEFRA), Department for Energy Security & Net Zero (DESNZ), Department for Education (DFE), Department of Health & Social Care (DHSC), Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities (DLUHC), Department for Science, Innovation & Technology (DSIT), Department for Work & Pensions (DWP), HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC), HM Treasury (HMT), Home Office (HO), Ministry of Defence (MOD) and Office for National Statistics (ONS). Departments decide the most appropriate attendees.

The ODA learning days began in 2017 and have been held annually since with around 50-100 attendees from ODA spending departments at the time. It would be of disproportionate cost to identify the exact numbers of attendees and grades as this information was not collected at the time.