Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, how many members of staff his Department employs overseas in roles based in the Middle East and North Africa region in each year since 2010; and how many such staff were in roles requiring an ability to speak a local language.

The following numbers of UK-based staff were employed in overseas roles in the Middle East and North Africa region in each Financial Year since 2012/13. As reported in the 2012/13 FCO Annual Report and Accounts at page 29 in February 2013, the FCO realigned previous staffing figures to better reflect guidance issued by the Office of National Statistics, for example it excluded all staff working for the UK Border Agency (UKBA) overseas, and staff working for Wilton Park and FCO Services. This means that we are unable to provide reliable comparable figures prior to this date.

UK based staff positions in Middle East and North African posts:

2012/13 219

2103/14 197

2014/15 181

2015/16 219

28 Feb 2017 239

The numbers of speaker positions is as follows:

March 2015 78

March 2016 95

March 2017 93