Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what estimate he has made of the total amount of unpaid overtime worked by staff in his Department in the last 24 months.

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) does not hold this information because we do not record total hours worked for any of our staff. This is managed by individual teams, particularly overseas.

Wellbeing is a key priority in the FCO, and we recognise the importance of staff maintaining a good work life balance and not regularly working beyond their conditioned hours. Wellbeing Confident Leadership workshops have already been delviered to 67 per cent of our Senior Civil Servant and Senior Management Structure staff, with the remainder expected to complete the training by the end of the year.

Where staff are consistently exceeding their conditioned hours, managers are expected to take steps to ensure that staff are not overstretched, and that they are not exceeding the limits set out in the 1998 Working Time Regulations. However, at times, staff may be asked to work above their conditioned hours to deliver priority work, and will be paid overtime in line with our overtime policies.