Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, if his Department will make an assessment of the potential merits of introducing a cross-departmental electronic database system for collating Overseas Security and Justice Assistance assessments, as part of its roll out of the Fusion Doctrine.

Responsibility for complying with the Overseas Security and Justice Assistance (OSJA) Guidance rests with the department or agency with oversight of the assistance being delivered. Where more than one department or agency is involved, in most cases the implementing body will lead on the project-specific assessment, and the funding or coordinating body will lead on securing the necessary approval. All organisations regularly involved in security and justice assistance have a designated OSJA Lead who is responsible for ensuring consistency in the application of the OSJA Guidance in their department.

Government departments use the OSJA Guidance as a central part of their risk management procedures. OSJA assessments completed for specific projects or interventions are working documents, and are regularly updated in line with developments in the country concerned.

We do not assess that there is a need for a central database to support these risk management arrangements.