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Foreign and Commonwealth Office

Answer

Mr. Ancram: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what language courses are offered by his Department to staff being posted overseas; and what the cost of these programmes has been in each year since 1997. [96303] Mr. Straw: The amount of language training offered to staff posted overseas depends on the nature of the job to which they are posted. For those posted to a job which requires them to be able to speak a language to a certain level, they will receive the training necessary to reach the appropriate level. This can vary from a few months for basic training in the more straightforward European languages such as French or Spanish to up to two years for the hard languages like Arabic, Chinese or Japanese. For staff whose job overseas does not require them to be able to speak the local language, 100 hours language training is available to enable them to cope with the basic needs of everyday living. This 100 hours is also offered to spouses and partners. The cost of this language training for each of the years since 1997 is as follows: _________________________________________________________________________________________________. Year £ 1997-98 1,967,196 1998-99 2,262,308 1999-2000 2,255,815 2000-01 2,322,356 2001-02 2,347,896 2002-03 2,519,883 _________________________________________________________________________________________________.

Secondary information

Type

Written question

Reference

96303; 399 c572W;399 c570W

Session

2002-03

Subjects

Costs Civil servants Education Languages Staff Foreign and Commonwealth Office

Link

View this Written question on www.publications.parliament.uk