Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, how many and what proportion of staff employed by his Department overseas in roles requiring an ability to speak a local language are at the Target Level Attainment for that language.

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office has 527 roles occupied overseas where staff are required to speak the local language to at least degree level. As of February 2017, 54 per cent of staff in these roles have reached Target Level Attaintment of C1 (which equates to degree level) and have successfully passed the C1 exam. This equates to 287 officers across the network. This is an improvement of 15 per cent since December 2015.

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office expects all officers to have reached a minimum level of B2 before going overseas. This is equivalent to A-level. Officers at Post who have not reached their target level are expected to continue their language training with a view to taking the C1 exam within the first year of their posting.

All staff whose roles require an ability to speak the local language undergo a period of full time language training before their deployment overseas. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office has recently implemented a series of measures to improve the Target Level Attainment, including measures to ensure officers complete their training before arrival at Post, as well as working with Directorates on succession planning for overseas roles which have a speaker requirement.