Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, how many and what proportion of digital roles within his Department were vacant as of 26 February 2024.

As part of the 2022 to 2025 Roadmap for Digital and Data, all departments made a commitment to reduce their digital and data vacancies to under 10 per cent of total Government Digital and Data headcount by 2025. This is to drive modernisation and digitisation in Government, improving public services for the British people and saving taxpayer money. Overall good progress has been made, with total vacancies now at 15 per cent.

FCDO reports biannually to Cabinet Office on our Digital and Data workforce as defined in the Digital and Data Profession Capability Framework. Our last return, in November 2023, had a vacancy rate of 15.7 per cent.