Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, how many members of his Department's staff employed in overseas roles were based in the Russian and Eastern Europe region in each year since 2010; and how many such staff were in roles requiring the ability to speak a local language.

The following numbers of UK-based staff were employed in overseas roles in the Eastern Europe and Central Asia region (including Russia) in each Financial Year since 2012/13. As reported in the 2012/13 FCO Annual Report and Accounts on 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.

The number of designated language speaker slots in this region was as follows.

2014/15 50

2015/16 57

2016/17 61