To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs which services his Department has outsourced in each of the last five years; and if he will make a statement. (274448)

The provision for UK based language training for Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) officers was outsourced in 2007 after the completion of a tender process in accordance with Government guidelines. A framework agreement was signed with 15 providers. Within the framework, each newly commissioned course is subject to competition between these providers.

Information and data covering the FCO’s global outsourcing of services are not held centrally and could, therefore, be obtained only at disproportionate cost.