Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, how many officials in his Department have a primary responsibility of managing digital channels or producing social media content; and what the (a) grades and (b) job descriptions are of those officials.

21st Century digital diplomacy is recognised as an essential tool and we intent to be world leading. ​ We have a dedicated digital communications team in London, responsible for managing the Foreign and Commonwealth Office's digital channels and providing support to all our Posts around the world, to ensure communications staff and Heads of Mission, know how to use digital tools as part of their broader communications work. The London team consist of an SMS Digital Transformation Leader who is partly responsible for digital communications content and policy, a D6 Head of digital engagement responsible for overall digital content, a C5 social media manager and C4 social media officer responsible for producing content and channel management; and three C band digital campaigns officers, responsible for producing digital content. Posts have a communications team, who also have responsibility for managing local digital channels or producing content, but these staff are recruited locally, and it is delegated to the Head of Mission to allocate the amount of time spent on various communications tasks.