Question to the Department for International Development:

To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what assessment her Department has made of the effectiveness of its implementation of the Overseas Security and Justice Assistance framework.

The Government applies its Overseas Security and Justice Assistance (OSJA) human rights guidance to ensure that security and justice assistance meets its human rights obligations and values. This guidance was revised and re-published in January 2017.

The UK’s security and justice expertise is highly valued across the world and improves the standards and capabilities of law enforcement and security agencies operating in the most challenging environments. OSJA assessments are carried out before assistance is rendered and evaluate the risk of any assistance provided being used in a way that is not in line with human rights and British values. As the Foreign Secretary stated in his written ministerial statement in January 2017, the new OSJA process remains the most comprehensive and demanding tool of its type anywhere in the world.

As the lead Department for OSJA policy, the Foreign Office engaged with a number of human rights organisations (including members of the Foreign Secretary’s Advisory Groups on Human Rights) as part of the recent revision of the OSJA guidance and will continue to do so with regard to its implementation. The Foreign Office will include information on the steps taken to implement OSJA across Government when it publishes its Annual Human Rights Report.

All DFID security and justice programmes are required to follow OSJA guidance in their business cases and any programme extensions. Annual reviews of these programmes assess risk and mitigations also in line with the OSJA guidance. Authority for activity underpinned by OSJA assessments is made at different levels according to the risk, from personnel in-country to Ministers. DFID does not hold data covering all OSJA assessments made in the last three calendar years.