Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, with reference to the merger of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) and the Department for International Development (DfID), if she will publish the (a) cost of that merge as of 26 May 2022, (b) staffing retention rates among former DfID and former FCO staff and (c) details of progress on the integration of IT systems.

FCDO's Annual Report and Accounts are published in summer each year. The costs of merging the FCO and DFID into the FCDO (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office) during FY 2020/21 were published in last year's Annual Report and Accounts. We will publish the cost of merger for FY 2021/22 in this year's Annual Report and Accounts.

The turnover rate of FCDO staff over the last financial year, April 2021 to March 2022, was 10.8%. Over the same time period the turnover rate of former DFID staff was 11.4%, and the turnover rate of former FCO staff was 10.4%. The turnover rate of FCDO staff during the first year of the merger, September 2020 to August 2021, was 9.3%. Over the same time period the turnover rate of both former DFID staff and former FCO staff was also 9.3%

FCDO has developed a new single IT platform called Osprey. Over 650 ex-DFID staff have so far been migrated to Osprey, with plans to have all FCDO staff, in the UK and overseas, operating from a single core IT cloud tenant by September 2022. The FCDO Hera programme will deliver a single integrated finance and HR system, the system is planned to be implemented in two phases in July and November 2022.