TNAG-1851-FCO40-2626-House-of-Commons-Select-Committee-on-Foreign-Affairs-enquiry-1989 — Page 37

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3 May 1989]

MINUTES OF EVIDENCE TAKEN BEFORE

[Continued

Examination of witnesses

SIR PATRICK WRIGHT, KCMG, Permanent Secretary, MR DAVID BLATHERWICK, OBE, Principal Finance Officer, MR David Moss, cmg, Assistant Under Secretary, Miss CATHERINE PESTELL, CMG, Assistant Under Secretary, MR GEOFF GRIFFITHS, Deputy Head of Finance Department, and MR A R PAUL, Head of Hong Kong Department, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, called in and examined.

Chairman

85. Sir Patrick, welcome back to the Committee. We are delighted that you could be with us again and help us with our examination of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and ODA expenditure rooted in the Supply Estimates and the Public Expenditure White Paper and greatly assisted by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office memor- andum submitted in answer to a number of our written questions. Against that background we want to develop one or two points and ask for your help. First, Sir Patrick, may I ask whether you would kindly introduce your colleagues?

(Sir Patrick Wright) Thank you, Mr Chairman, Miss Catherine Pestell is the Assistant Under Sec- retary supervising the public departments, which include those

those departments responsible for migration, cultural and consular matters. David Moss is the deputy chief clerk and principal estab- lishment and security officer in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Mr David Blatherwick is Principal Finance Officer and chief inspector. Mr Geoffrey Griffiths is Deputy Head of Finance Department. Mr Paul is Head of Hong Kong Department.

86. Thank you. I hope that you and your colleagues will feel encouraged to chip in as the impulse arises on particular questions should we come to them. I want to begin on manpower issues, on which you have a number of comments to make in the memorandum of the Foreign and Common- wealth Office which caught the eye of the Commit- tee. In particular we noted the question of shortfall in manpower which you recorded as being 161 in March 1988 and 126 and half a post in March 1989. Within the overall figure the memorandum showed us that there are still particular shortages, and you say, "the position in some support grades as well as in technical and communications grade has deteriorated". Indeed, you go on to say, "The effect of the shortfall is that the FCO cannot fill all established posts nor meet all the short term demands for summer relief work". This sounds a rather serious situation. We wondered what pros- pects you see of remedying the problems, and we should like to hear your views on that. May I ask specifically to what extent the shortfall is caused by resignations and to what extent failure to recruit? Within that, what grades are giving you most worries?

(Sir Patrick Wright) It is a disappointment that we have been unable to improve the shortfall more than we have. As you have said, there has been an improvement since last year, 161 down to 126. I must say that I had myself hoped for a bigger reduction in shortfall than that. The reason for the

shortfall is about evenly balanced between wast- age-resignations, departures-and recruitment difficulties, the latter particularly in technical and communications grades and in administration officer grades. We are doing what we can to improve the situation. I hope very much that I shall have better news to report to you next year. We have a group in the Foreign and Common- wealth Office on shortages and recruitment moni- toring the situation. It meets every quarter and is conducting a forward planning exercise and setting recruitment targets. It is a serious situation and I think we have to accept-this is certainly true of many employers, not just the Foreign and Com- monwealth Office-that the 1990s are likely to be a difficult environment for recruitment with the decline in numbers of school leavers forecast to be 28 per cent between 1987 and 1993. We are faced with a situation where I think we need more flexi- bility in recruitment, and some action has already been taken on this. Age limits for fast stream entry-that is into DS grade 8 and 7D-have been appointments in the administration competition; raised to 52 as part of changes to Whitehall-wide and we have adopted rather more use of the reinstatement of former employees at a higher grade, which was previously not permitted under Civil Service rules. I hope that we will be able to take other action to improve the situation, includ- ing more targeted recruitment efforts at both schools and universities and more targeted recruit- ment to reflect changes in the workforce, for instance, in the higher use of older women workers, part-time employment which normally applies to women officers. It may be that the planned changes that the Government has very recently announced on the Civil Service Commission may also help, though that is not yet clear. I think that we have explained in the memorandum to the Committee which particular grades are suffering specially from the shortfall and where the main inprovements have been over the last year. I repeat that the main problem we are facing and will continue to face is in technical and communications grades where the level of salaries is certainly a factor. The Treasury in fact are carrying out a pay and grading review of the Cipher and Signals Branch.

87. May I ask you a rather general impression- istic question. In past eras there has been an atti- tude towards recruitment in the Foreign Office, certainly from the universities, which could be summed up in saying that these are the plum jobs and that people going to the Foreign Office are people at the top of the pack; and generally that is where the people go for their glitterring prizes. Would you say that that kind of traditional view of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and working in it still persist in the universities or has