The Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office has a “pattern” of providing members of Parliament with “dodgy information,” according to the chair of the International Development Committee of MPs, who labeled the practice “arrogant.”
The remarks by Sarah Champion, a Labour MP, followed an exchange of letters with Sir Philip Barton, FCDO’s permanent undersecretary, which she said did not provide sufficient information about aid spending plans.
“This is not the first time the Foreign Office has tried to fob us off with dodgy information on what it is up to,” said Champion in a statement.
“This pattern of [FCDO] behaviour is arrogant. It is bordering on showing contempt … towards the democratic Parliamentary tradition of holding the government to account for its actions.”
— Sarah Champion, chair, International Development Committee“Lumping spending plans together, rather [than] breaking down the detail, may seem like a technical issue, but it is not. The tactic makes it almost impossible to scrutinize, meaning my Committee cannot see where the priorities should be when it comes to supporting the poorest parts of the world and helping the UK taxpayer get the best value for money from the aid budget,” Champion added.
Concerns have been growing in the development sector about what critics say is a fall in transparency from FCDO, which has coincided with the severe round of aid cuts the department has been implementing. Devex continues to monitor the publicly known aid cuts in a tracker, but it is thought many more have been kept secret.
Earlier this week, the Independent Commission for Aid Impact, another independent body that monitors U.K. development policy, took the unusual step of reporting that transparency had declined at FCDO.
FCDO has maintained it has a commitment to full transparency.
Champion wrote to Barton on May 17 asking for more details on the department’s spending estimates, noting that “a single budget line” called “Strategic priorities and other programme spending” now covered three areas of spending which were previously detailed separately. Barton’s original letter detailing the estimates was not published online and Devex was unable to obtain it from IDC.
Barton’s June 8 reply said that FCDO and Treasury officials “judged that the changes to the [spending] Estimate were a technical rationalisation resulting from the creation of the FCDO rather than a change in substance.” He added that the new subject heading was done to “present information relating to program spend in the simplest way possible.”
Champion sent a follow-up letter on June 22, saying “the lack of detail falls short of what we would expect to see — particularly given the rapid reductions in ODA expenditure and the high level of committee and public interest in this area.”
“Quite frankly, this pattern of [FCDO] behaviour is arrogant. It is bordering on showing contempt for my Committee — and by extension towards the democratic Parliamentary tradition of holding the government to account for its actions … We oppose these cuts and we will keep calling out the government every time it tries to hide them,” Champion’s statement continued.
"We are committed to full transparency, and throughout the pandemic have continued to publish our aid spending for each project online so anyone can see it,” an FCDO spokesperson said Friday.
Update, June 25, 2021: This story has been updated with a comment from the FCDO.
About the author
William Worley@willrworley
Will Worley is the Climate Correspondent for Devex, covering the intersection of development and climate change. He previously worked as UK Correspondent, reporting on the FCDO and British aid policy during a time of seismic reforms. Will’s extensive reporting on the UK aid cuts saw him shortlisted for ‘Specialist Journalist of the Year’ in 2021 by the British Journalism Awards. He can be reached at william.worley@devex.com.
