The Report
of the Iraq Inquiry
922.
On 21 June,
Mr Paul Schulte, Head of the PCRU, updated Mr Suma
Chakrabarti,
DFID
Permanent Secretary, and Mr Drummond on progress setting up
the Unit,
explaining
that it had expanded rapidly since being established in September
2004:
•
27
permanent staff had been appointed and recruitment was nearly
complete;
•
the PCRU
had created a database of deployable civilian experts;
•
progress
had been made on a number of framework agreements to allow
timely
provision
of services; and
•
work on
assessment and planning tools was well under way.582
923.
Mr Schulte
reported that a number of proposals for operational work were
being
considered,
including in Afghanistan and Sierra Leone.
924.
Mr Drummond
cautioned against widening the PCRU’s remit beyond
stabilisation
activities
where UK forces were deployed.
925.
Mr Chakrabarti
asked to see a list of operations being considered and
an
explanation
of how decisions were being made.
926.
An internal
review of the PCRU’s first months, produced for Mr Schulte
in
July 2005,
recommended a number of changes to the Unit and its
remit.583
The
recommendations included:
•
greater
engagement with multilateral operations;584
and
•
promoting a
new approach to civilian force generation to replace what
remained
an
“unsystematic and largely ad hoc process” for identifying,
recruiting and
927.
Mr Benn
updated Parliament on 21 July:
“I wish to
inform parliament of the establishment and current capabilities of
the
Post-Conflict
Reconstruction Unit (PCRU). The PCRU is an inter-departmental
unit,
which has
been set up by our three departments to improve the United
Kingdom’s
capacity to
contribute to the creation of a stable environment in countries
emerging
from
conflict. The Unit’s work is overseen by the Defence and Overseas
Policy
(Conflict
and Reconstruction) Committee, chaired by the Foreign
Secretary.
“The PCRU
has been established to carry out two main tasks: first, to
develop
government
strategy for post-conflict stabilisation, which includes linking
military
and
civilian planning, as well as working with the wider international
community for
582
Minute
[DFID junior official] to Drummond, 29 June 2005, ‘PCRU Update
Meeting with the PUSS,
21 June’.
583
Minute
Astle and Korski to Schulte, 14 July 2005, ‘PCRU – A Look
Ahead’.
584
Minute
Astle and Korski to Schulte, 14 July 2005, ‘Strategic Discussion
Paper 1 – PCRU Concept
of Operations’.
585
Minute
Astle and Korski to Schulte, 14 July 2005, ‘Strategic Discussion
Paper 3 – Civilian Force
Generation’.
512