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Obviously I won’t pass judgement on the DFID and FCO merger, but some interesting questions arise for the likes of @instituteforgov, @ORGinfo, @AndrewDormanIA and @josephdevanny
UK aid spending (Overseas Development Assistance - ODA) is calculated by categorisation of the recipient, rather than the source. So a merger alone won’t change whether the UK meets its 0.7% gross national income spending target. Departments other than DFID contribute to ODA.
The rationale given is to better align aid spending with UK interests. DFID experts would probably point out that aid and development are two different things, where the former is more about crises and ‘doing good’ for want of a better phrase.
The latter can be more closely aligned with interests, in terms of cultivating relationships and supporting countries where the consequences of failure would hurt the UK (though aid can do this too).
That alignment comes from the NSC, where the Development Secretary is a member. And the UK’s Fusion Doctrine places more emphasis on departments coordinating in support of NSC subject strategies.
That has led to the creation of National Strategy Implementation Groups across government, chaired by officials nominated to lead on that subject, including from both DFID and the FCO.
See here for the Select Committee report, based on the Cabinet Secretary’s evidence on these. https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/jt201719/jtselect/jtnatsec/2072/207206.htm
So it’s interesting that with those in place, the decision has been taken to go for the bigger move of a departmental merger ahead of the outcome of the Integrated Review, which would have looked at this and aid spending.
This is covered by a recent Development Committee summary of its interim findings on UK aid spending. https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm5801/cmselect/cmintdev/215/21506.htm#_idTextAnchor031
It’s doubly interesting, because many of the questions and statements on the disparity between foreign policy and aid spending could also be applied to the intelligence budget (much bigger than the FCO’s) and Defence (bigger than aid, diplomacy and intelligence combined).
Where DFID has huge heft with aid spending, the MOD has large, visible ‘things’ and lots of people, which give it some freedom to do ‘stuff’ in its own right. So the NSIGs are also intended to ensure that defence activity (including defence diplomacy) complement foreign policy.
The ambassador in any given country is usually seen as primus inter pares when it comes to the UK’s national position, and in most countries the embassy is a joint ‘platform’ where teams work closely, perhaps better than their head offices!
Changes in the machinery of government are very dry, but they can signal shifts in both how policy is made and its objectives. It will be interesting to see if this links to IR decisions, or is treated as an exception once the review restarts, and the implications for ‘fusion’.
