Britain’s Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt unveiled plans to revamp and expand Britain’s diplomatic service across the world to make the country ready for a new international order and in preparation for Brexit.
The overhaul, which will involve the creation of 12 new posts internationally and the hiring of 1,000 more personnel, will seek to reverse the fall in staffing figures at the department. The number of civil servants has fallen at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) in recent years, as it has across departments, as part of the government’s austerity drive.
Figures from the Institute of Government earlier this year showed how since Brexit, the FCO had been one of the departments to have seen the smallest growth in staffing. This had worried many, fearful that at a time that it was essential for Britain to have strong networks across the world, it would not be prepared.
Past cuts, particularly the hollowing out of staffing levels within some of Britain’s major partners in previous budget cuts, had had a detrimental effect on British diplomatic efforts, said Ian Bond, the director of foreign policy at the Centre for European Reform and a former diplomat.
“We must invigorate and expand British diplomacy. In the past you may have heard of retrenchment and retreat. Not anymore,” said Mr. Hunt in a speech late on Wednesday. Alongside new posts in Africa and the Caribbean, and the hiring of new staff — both British and locally in missions — Britain will expand languages taught at the Foreign Office Language School by 20 to include Gujarati, and central Asian and African languages.
“This country is at a pivotal, historic moment,” said Mr. Hunt. “The global balance of power is shifting once more and post-Brexit, our place within it as well.
In perhaps the most headline grabbing change, that also courted scepticism from former diplomats, the Foreign Secretary pledged to “broaden” the talent pool for Ambassadors, including to business leaders. “We must never close our eyes to the approaches and skills of other industries.”
During the speech, Mr. Hunt pointed to the changing global dynamics, including the rise of the Indian economy to highlight the new international order that Britain’s foreign office had to reflect and respond to.
Gareth Price, senior research fellow at think tank Chatham House, said a practical and philosophical vision for Britain’s foreign service beyond the “global Britain” rhetoric of Boris Johnson (Mr. Hunt’s predecessor) was welcome, though questions remained, particularly on where the FCO saw its priorities.
Would it involve an increased focus on trade — as the choice of Ambassadors from the business community might suggest — or would other values such as the promotion of democracy and media freedom that Mr. Hunt referenced also be given emphasis?
“The world is a very different place to the one it was: the day of Western countries like Britain telling others what they are doing are by and large over. A lot of this is reversing cuts of recent years,” said former diplomat Mr. Bond, who expressed his scepticism about whether the plans entailed extra spending or simply a re-jigging of existing budgets, including developmental budgets. “If there are actually going to be 1,000 extra personnel, including British staff, that has got to be a good thing but it has got to be properly resourced and resourced sustainably.’
He was also sceptical of Mr. Hunt’s plans to focus on the creation of an invisible chain of democracies. “I do think it’s an unrealistic assessment of Britain’s place in the world, which I would link to this government’s fixation on the Commonwealth as a replacement for the EU.”
