Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, how much his Department spent on temporary staff in the last three financial years in support of the FCDO Integration programme following the merger of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and Department for International Development.

The creation of the FCDO brought together our development and diplomatic expertise to deliver greater impact for the UK internationally. The merger has required all FCDO staff across the department to work in different ways. Spend on temporary staff within the FCDO is largely driven by the nature of the projects being undertaken and the expertise required. At a high level, temporary staff costs over the last three financial years are associated to IT and digital activity, priority programmes and merger activity where temporary and specialist expertise has been needed to ensure delivery. These costs are set out in the FCDO Annual Reports for the previous three financial years: