Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what the average number of days training of full-time equivalent staff employed in his Department was in each of the last three financial years.

The average number of hours staff in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) have spent participating in learning and development, during the last three financial years were:

2013/14 - 51.7 hours per person
2012/13 - 43.6 hours per person
2011/12 - 43.7 hours per person

We record participation in hours because the length of learning and development varies considerably. This data refers to UK Based Staff development activities only. We do not hold data centrally on the learning and development undertaken by Local Staff employed overseas. To obtain this would incur disproportionate cost.