The Report
of the Iraq Inquiry
708.
The Inquiry
asked Lord Jay, FCO Permanent Under Secretary from 2002 to
2006,
how he and
the FCO Board reached a view of the balance between the value of
the
activities
and the cost of achieving them.452
Lord Jay
told the Inquiry:
“… there
are always judgments that you have to make as to whether people
are
secure and
how much you spend on that, but my judgment is that … if we had
felt
on the
[FCO] Board in London that we were not able to afford the security
for people,
then we
shouldn’t have people on the ground.”
709.
Mr Jim
Drummond, DFID Director Iraq, was briefed in advance of his
appearance
before the
International Development Committee (IDC) on 16 November 2004
that
DFID had,
to date, spent approximately £16.9m on staff security in Iraq,
including armed
protection,
armoured vehicles, hostile environment and emergency first aid
training, and
posting
Security Managers in Iraq and the UK.453
That
security spending had supported
project
spending of £32.1m; security spending therefore comprised
approximately
one‑third
of total project spending.
710.
The briefing
stated:
“Quantifying
the costs and benefits associated with a reform programme is
heavily
subjective.
So there is no specific point at which security costs make
projects
become
unviable. However, given the very high costs of operating at
present the
programme
is kept tightly focused on work that needs to be done now, and that
has
very high
rates of return. For example, our economic work has been focused
on
assisting
the Iraqi Government in agreeing an IMF programme, which is the
first step
in moving
towards debt relief. Clearly with debts of US$120bn the economic
benefits
of this
work outweigh the costs.”
711.
The NAO
published its report ‘DFID: Operating in insecure environments’
in
712.
The NAO
reported that “in extreme circumstances”, security and
administrative
costs could
outweigh “actual projects costs”. It offered as an example DFID’s
Technical
Advisory
Team Programme in Iraq. Of the total £7m allocation, £1.9m had been
spent
on consultancy
work and more than £5m on security and related
expenses.
713.
The NAO
reported that DFID did not systematically collate or analyse the
extra
costs of
running its business in insecure environments. Significant security
costs in Iraq
and other
countries were categorised by DFID as programme, rather than
administrative,
expenditure,
making them more difficult to identify. Security costs incurred by
DFID’s
implementing
partners would also be categorised as programme
expenditure.
452
Public
hearing, 30 June 2010, page 64.
453
Briefing
DFID, [undated], ‘Preparations for IDC Evidence Session, 16
November 2004’.
454
National
Audit Office, Department
for International Development: operating in insecure
environments,
16 October
2008.
566