Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, how many and what proportion of staff in each grade were rated in the top performance category in the last year.

The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office employs approximately 17,500 staff across hundreds of locations worldwide, many of which operate with locally managed HR arrangements and procedures. While we are able to say that around 15 per cent of these individuals worldwide were marked in the top performance box last year, the other information the Hon Member has requested is not centrally held, and could only be collated and verified at disproportionate cost.