Written question asked by Rob Marris (Labour) on Wednesday, 6 June 2007, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Wednesday, 27 June 2007. It was answered by Geoffrey Hoon (Labour) on Wednesday, 27 June 2007 on behalf of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

Departments: Languages

Question: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what the views of (a) language teaching staff in her Department and (b) staff in other departments were on the decision to outsource her Department's language teaching operation.

Answer: Language teaching staff are very committed to achieving high standards in their work. They expressed disappointment when told of the decision to outsource the teaching operation. We will be offering them every possible support in managing the transition from the present arrangements. There will be no bar to existing teaching staff providing language training services to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) in future, either as an employee or owner of an organisation that successfully tenders for this business.Language training will continue to be provided for staff from other Government Departments posted into FCO jobs. Those Departments will be offered the opportunity to use the proposed FCO framework agreement to source language training for their own staff who need language skills in the future. Other Departments were not consulted on the FCO's business decision to outsource language training.

Secondary information