A Very Diplomatic Response - Praise for the FCO Handling of COVID-19 Crisis

The Foreign & Commonwealth Office (FCO) is being attacked by a variety of actors including the media and Parliamentarians for not doing enough to help get Britons stranded by the Corona virus (COVID-19) home. Is this criticism fair, or is it a case of attacking those doing their best to help.

The FCO has long attracted suspicions that it isn’t necessarily on the side of the UK taxpayer. There is a (possibly) mythical quote attributed to WW2 with a senior officer being asked by a member of the public, who responded with ‘ours – I think’ (or words to that effect).

There is also perhaps some public misunderstanding about the role of the FCO. Many people imagine the Embassy overseas being full of plucky Brits, probably wearing pinstriped suits or pith helmets adorned with Turkey feathers wondering if it’s too early for a snifter of brandy at 11am before a Ferrero Roche filled reception that night.

The reality is the modern FCO is a busy globally focused operation that harnesses some of the most astounding capable and dynamic civil servants going. They recruit very good people; they send them to very difficult places and they expect them to work very hard for a miserly salary.

The UK benefits from having one of the largest diplomatic networks in the world, with almost every nation on earth having some form of British diplomatic presence. Nations that are members of the Commonwealth have ‘High Commissions’ (led by a High Commissioner) while other nations have Embassies and Ambassadors. There are also consulates in larger countries (essentially micro-embassies for the local area) and some diplomatic missions – for example the UK Delegation to NATO.

The overall UK footprint is considerably larger than most nations and has expanded rapidly in recent years. It is scheduled to grow further, particularly as the UK moves to expand its presence in both Africa and the Asia-Pacific region. Today there are nearly 300 posts around the world, covering every continent on the planet.

The network has also changed considerably in that over the years there has been a real move to consolidate the wider HMG footprint into the minimum number of sites in each country. A modern embassy may house FCO staff to handle diplomatic relations, trade teams may be working to establish opportunities for UK business. 

The defence section is likely to have MOD staff, while the Dept for International Development will also have teams working to co-ordinate the wider aid plans for the county with national strategic goals. All told there may be representatives from 10 or move departments working in any one embassy or High Commission site depending on the nature of the site and the work it is doing.

The people are also not posh public-school types without a clue how the real world works. The FCO is not only representative of the modern diverse Civil Service, but it also recruits externally on a regular basis at a range of levels, providing opportunities for direct entry and refreshing its talent pool. In a very short time, the FCO has become an outward focused and highly accessible organisation to make the most of the talent it can draw on.

Despite all this, there aren’t that many British personnel based at most posts. Over the years large numbers of posts have been changed from UK roles to locally employed civilians (LEC) type roles. The days of having a large number of UK clerical staff based overseas to handle visa applications has diminished, being replaced by local nationals or others working to handle many of the routine tasks – for example a centralised hub operation for many different nations in one region is the modern model.

The actual number of British diplomats based in any one post is often pretty small and mostly linked to political positions (e.g. being the desk officer responsible for foreign relations or political liaison). But it is really important to understand that the number of British diplomatic staff in most Posts is a very small percentage of the staff total, and even then most small posts are going to employ maybe 10-20 people at best, and often far less than this.

The role of the Embassy staff is to primarily maintain relations with the host nation, ensure the bilateral relationship runs smoothly and conduct the delicate dance of policy negotiations, relationship management and general support that is needed for diplomatic reasons. Most staff based overseas spend large parts of their day going from liaison meeting to liaison meeting, or working with a variety of stakeholders to further UK policy goals – they work long hours and have to wear many hats to do their job effectively.

 The public often think naively that the FCO is a service run to get them out of trouble when things go wrong abroad. Sometimes it can help, for instance providing visits to UK nationals arrested, or trying to keep up to date information out there to a diverse expatriate community of UK nationals that may live in the country, who may range from tourists through to long term residents or even dual nationals.

In a crisis the Post will usually start to drop everything to work to execute whatever plan it needs to do. For example, in the event of an evacuation of UK nationals by the armed forces, they would be working with various stakeholders to set it up, get the people in place and get them out. But they would also be heavily supported in this work by teams back in London, and by teams flown in for the event.

There is an excellent crisis management centre in London in King Charles Street. Visiting it is akin to visiting a modern ‘war room’ with a layout designed to share information and with big screen TV’s transmitting news on a constant basis, as well as liaison desks for other departments. This is the London hub of the UK response to a major incident abroad, and there is a large team of professional staff whose role is to constantly ensure the FCO can help as best it can in an emergency issue.

But there is a limit to what can be done, and we perhaps need to be realistic about this. The FCO is a small organisation and its resources are finite. In a single issue (for example conducting an evacuation from one country), it would draw on resources from the wider network, and help solve the task at hand.

The problem with COVID-19 though is that we are collectively seeing a crisis unlike anything the world has ever known before. For the first time we are seeing what a global lockdown and the draw down essentially of all the various links that tie people to the global community.

Right now, FCO staff in Posts around the world are doing a herculean task of trying to get the British diaspora home. This is not easy when being set against a global shutdown of a way of life that has existed for decades.

For example, staff will be trying to find the right people, get what information they have to them, co-ordinate local issues with the host government (for example ensuring that people can leave, that there are no detention issues, that UK nationals are being looked after as well as possible).

They are trying to co-ordinate transport options to get people home. They are not travel agents though, and it is deeply frustrating to see people whinging to the media about how the Embassy isn’t helping. This may come as a shock but the British Embassy in Country X does not have the magical power to click its fingers and summon a plane home for you just because you are unhappy and want to get back.

The FCO will be trying to make people aware of what is going on, but information is changing by the hour. What was likely to happen at 6am may be postponed at 8am, cancelled at 10am and then brought forward to be actioned at 1pm. The point is that this is a situation unlike anything we have ever seen before, and the British Embassy is working to try its best to keep people up to date.

There needs to be an acceptance that there are not hundreds of staff in these embassies able to help when called on. Many of the smaller posts may have a dozen staff to handle everything, and right now they are exhausted. Most of them won’t have had a day off in weeks, they too are likely to be worried about friends and family at home, and they are also likely to be concerned. The difference is that unlike the travelling public, running away isn’t an option for them. They will stay and do the job at hand in the finest traditions of the FCO.

The small staff numbers means that if there are hundreds of people demanding answers, it may not be possible to answer them all quickly or accurately. People are complaining that the Embassy is telling people to ring the airlines when their flights are cancelled, but seem to lack the common sense to understand that the British Embassy is not a commercial airline operator. It does not have the power to compel airlines to tell it what to do, nor does it probably have any more access or influence to change things than any other embassy going.

Others have moaned that the Embassy isn’t helping them get flights back from Peru, yet when told about a charter flight moaned about the cost being triple that of a commercial flight. It seemed that some people lacked the basic understanding that it is substantially more expensive to charter a plane for a bespoke one off trip than it is to run a scheduled operation. More practically, if the situation was that bad, then what the bloody hell were you doing in the country anyway – this virus has been going for weeks, surely taking a tiny modicum of personal responsibility for yourself to track the news and get back is incumbent on people, not leaving it till the last minute then whinging that the nasty FCO diplomats won’t wipe your bottom for you?

What people aren’t seeing is the huge work behind the scenes to keep the operation moving even as whole chunks of the global transport network are being shut down. International airlines are taking decisions to suspend or pause networks in a way that will have global consequences -a flight cancelled today in one country may mean that another flight in 4 days’ time from a third party is cancelled because the jet isn’t in the right place for the flight.

Decisions on how to keep the networks going are not something necessarily being shared with local embassies, nor is it realistic to expect them to get up to date news. At best one has to hope that the host government keeps foreign embassies fully informed, but this depends on the nation in question.

Added to this is the sheer logistical challenge of getting aircraft or other means of transport sorted, ensuring they can take people (some of whom may well have the symptoms themselves) and persuade them to take people home. The FCO staff are doing an enormous amount of hard work behind the scenes to make many things happen smoothly and have been responsible for the evacuation of tens of thousands of UK nationals around the world and helped them get home.

But we must be realistic on what it is possible to expect in a global crisis when literally every part of the network is stretched to breaking point. This pandemic is testing every nations diplomatic network to the max, and the UK is doing a very good job in very difficult circumstances.

While you may read headlines suggesting ‘Country X sorted out flights so why couldn’t FCO’, this rarely considers that perhaps there were only a tiny number of people in the country so it was easier to get them in one flight. It may be that the people had been effective in working with their travel provider to sort something out to assist the evacuation, rather than relying on the Embassy to do it for them, or it may be the case that the UK population in country was much bigger, and as such hundreds of others had been returned without incident, yet some people will always complain about their situation.

There is also a deeper question to be asked about what is it realistic to expect the FCO to deliver in terms of services to UK nationals? Right now around 270 offices around the world, mostly with very small staff numbers, and a total workforce of some 4000 British and 8000 locally employed staff are doing their best to facilitate the movement of over one million UK nationals home.

This may be the greatest exodus of UK population probably since the end of WW2, and it is happening at the same time as every other nation is encouraging its people to do the same thing. There is a finite limit to what can be done with the resources on hand, and the reality that the workforce is likely to get sick, is likely to need to self-isolate and is doing what it can in exceptionally challenging circumstances.

Rather than moaning about how awful it all is, perhaps people could recognise a slightly bigger picture here. The FCO has done an amazing job so far in helping get people home, often from some phenomenally difficult situations, and in helping get flights organised, diplomatic clearances sought and the logistics in place to help bring our people home.

Perhaps instead of being angry that you aren’t flying home as expected, you could take a bit of personal responsibility, accept that the British Ambassador and FCO staff do not possess psychic powers to know when your flight back will be running, or that you are a doctor who needs to go home, or that you are a terribly important person in your own overactive mind, and accept that right now the world is a total bloody mess.

Sometimes we don’t always get what we want, and sometimes, no matter how good the FCO is, or how fabulous and capable its people are, you won’t get the outcome you want. But if you chose to go on holiday at a point when this became a known crisis, and when you knew things were getting worse, and you still chose to stay away, perhaps you should shoulder some of the blame instead of moaning that the nasty FCO is at fault?

Finally Humphrey would like to offer a very personal message to the amazing people of the Diplomatic Service, their colleagues in London and their families abroad:

I’ve worked with you all over the world from plush offices to warzones, I’ve worked alongside you, and as a member of your organisation and I am always humbled by the work you do, the outcomes you have made happen and how much good you do for our country day in, day out.

I am in awe of the work you are doing right now, and I can imagine how many long hours, hard decisions and difficult choices you’ve had to make to keep your fellow countrymen safe. You have done this without enough thanks or appreciation from those you strive to protect and serve, and this seems deeply unfair to me. You have given so much to keep this going at a time of challenge unlike anything we could have ever imagined happening.

I have never been prouder of the FCO and its people than I am now – please, keep doing what you do so well, because frankly, you’re shining examples of the very best that this country has to offer.

Thank You.