Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, how many staff from his Department have been seconded to external organisations in each year since 2010; to which external organisations and for how long such staff were seconded; and what the cost to his Department was of such secondments.

The numbers of staff seconded to other external organisations from 2010-2015 are as follows:

We cannot mention the names of the companies as this would breach commercial and personal confidentiality.

Without identifying individuals it is not possible to indicate how long each member of staff was seconded. However, in the majority of cases it was 1-3 years.

There is no cost to the department when an individual is seconded to an external organisation: either salary costs are reimbursed, or, with the Civil Service secondment scheme, the secondee is replaced by a member of staff from the external organisation.