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Standards in Whitehall have not exactly been high for quite some time. Whether it is working from the sofa, demanding a four-day week or going on strike, the public have come to expect little from civil servants these days.
But the very least one might expect of the Foreign Office, surely, is that officials are on top of the various agreements Britain has signed with other countries. While treaties have to be published, other arrangements, such as memorandums of understanding and other non-legally binding instruments, do not.
With the world as volatile as it is, Mr S was intrigued to look over a list of diplomatic coups recently achieved by the FCDO and other Whitehall departments in the form of non-legally binding agreements. One was requested from officials. But alas, it turns out no such record exists. The FCDO either does not know, or will not say, what its departments are agreeing in deals with other countries.
Indeed, Foreign Office minister Seema Malhotra said: ‘Non-Legally Binding Instruments (NBI) such as Memorandums of Understanding can cover a wide range of topics and can be negotiated by any Government department. The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office does not keep a central list of such instruments.’
