The UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) has ‘made substantial progress with the merger that created it’ but its ‘development capacity has reduced’ and improvements are still required in areas such as culture change, finds a new National Audit Office (NAO) report published today.
Serious flaws identified
Three years on from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the Department for International Development merger, the NAO – the UK’s independent public spending watchdog – has identified some serious flaws with the Government’s approach, such as failing to implement systems to assess the merger’s value for money.
The NAO report highlights serious negative implications from the merger for the FCDO’s capacity to deliver its international development role, such as the loss of senior development roles and the shortage of programme managers for aid programmes. The risk of the department losing international development skills and expertise is also still currently rated as “severe”.
Professor Melissa Leach, Director of the Institute of Development Studies, said:
“Beyond the serious financial costs of the FCDO merger – detailed so well in the NAO report – it also cost the UK its reputation for excellence in international development, and damaged the all-important trust required for effective global partnerships.
“The gaps left by the loss of many excellent DFID staff who left during the merger have not been filled, undermining the effectiveness of international development programming, as well as the quality of its international research.
“The big win of the merger was integrating development and diplomacy; there is some good evidence of how this has worked locally and in particular country contexts, but more broadly, the two sets of goals have proved challenging to combine. Understandings of development must be broadened beyond the narrow and limited view across much of what was FCO.
“The White Paper promised a re-set but if its promises are to be met, and as the UK approaches an election, it is critical to find the most effective structures to achieve a fit-for-purpose, learning-oriented and adaptive culture, and restore the UK’s role in international development.”
The merging of the two cultures of the FCO and DFID remains a work-in-progress and the NAO report identifies the areas including HR and IT systems that continue to be integrated.