Spending Review 2010

Reducing the huge deficit is essential to getting Britain back to recovery. The FCO's settlement ensures the Foreign Office will play its part, while also maintaining our global reach and forging a distinctive British approach to foreign policy.

Over the course of the Spending Review period the Foreign Office will see a 24% real terms reduction in the resource budget, and a 55% real terms reduction in capital spending. The Department’s administration budget will be reduced by 33%.

The settlement provides for an increase in the FCO's Overseas Development Assistance (ODA) spending to help meet the Government's commitment to dedicating 0.7% of Gross National Income to ODA by 2013 - the FCO's contribution to UK ODA spending will increase from around 2% in 2010/11 to around 2.4% in 2011/12.

The settlement continues to provide grants to both the World Service and the British Council, though at a reduced level. From 2014-15 the BBC World Service will be funded by the BBC, but the Foreign Secretary will retain his veto over any decisions to cut language services.

The BBC World Service and British Council are and will remain fundamentally important parts of Britain's presence in the world. The transfer of BBC World Service funding to the Licence Fee in 2014-15 will enhance and safeguard the World Service's vital role, allowing the BBC as a whole maximum scope to exploit efficiencies while also maintaining clear safeguards for BBC World Service funding and impartiality.

Once the additional resources from the BBC are taken into account the rest of the FCO budget will only fall by 10% over the period.

The Spending Review in full on the Treasury website