Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, how many contracts (a) his Department and (b) its agencies and non-departmental public bodies (i) have let and (ii) plan to let that are worth (A) between £1 million and £3 million and (B) over £3 million since 2010; how much his Department has spent on monitoring each such contract; and how many officials in his Department monitor each contract.

Since 2010, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) has awarded 34 contracts over £3 million and 40 contracts between £1-3 million (lifetime value). Contracts awarded by agencies and Non Departmental Public Bodies (NDPBs) are delegated to the relevant agency or body.

We anticipate awarding a further 21 contracts between £1-3 million and 9 contracts over £3 million within the remainder of this Financial Year.

In keeping with the Government’s transparency commitments, since 2012 contracts are published online for public scrutiny. This means taxpayers can hold us to account and make sure our contracts provide them with value for money and achieve what they are supposed to do. Further information can be found at https://www.gov.uk/contracts-finder.

In the last four years we have significantly built up our capability to commercially manage our contracts in line with wider government initiatives to improve supplier management. We have also provided training to officials to equip them with skills to negotiate the best prices with suppliers and resolve disputes satisfactorily and the FCO executive committee regularly meet supplier board members to oversee progress. We further manage risk and costs by appointing officials to manage individual contracts and be accountable the performance of each supplier.