Cross-departmental working
37. Responsibility for responding to the Wagner Network sits across several departments within the UK Government and reaches across multiple directorates within the FCDO. Among departments, the FCDO and Ministry of Defence receive the greatest focus in the Government’s written evidence to this inquiry. However, relevant powers also sit within:
- the Home Office, which has the power to proscribe organisations as terrorist entities and to ban foreign nationals from entering the UK when “conducive to the public good”;[1] and
- the Treasury, which has day-to-day decision-making power over sanctions implementation measures, including sanctions waivers.[2]
Ben Fender (Director, Eastern Europe and Central Asia, FCDO) told us:
Day to day, Government are coming together to look at Wagner as a problem, because we think it is a growing issue.[3]
It has not been possible during this inquiry to ascertain which minister has lead responsibility. The Government’s evidence to this inquiry arrived several months late, due to the challenges of obtaining input from multiple departments.[4]
38. Mechanisms to enable departments to work together include, at the highest level, the National Security Council, a Cabinet committee dedicated to the discussion of national security issues “in the round” and “in a strategic way”.[5] Among civil servants, the Russia Unit within the FCDO brings together officials from the Foreign Office and other departments.[6] It is intended to support “joined-up policy” on the Wagner Network and other Russia-related issues.[7] In February, the Minister said it had surged resources to this unit in the past year.[8] Referring to this unit, the Minister told us:
I am confident that we have a joined-up cross-Whitehall mechanism for ensuring the best possible execution of our policy… [9]
He added that:
…there are more people looking at this as part of a very defined effort over the last year—to surge resource into a very considerable ramping up of our efforts around Ukraine and wider issues…[10]
- ↑ PQ UIN HL3473 [on Wagner Group: Sanctions], Answered on 30 November 2022
- ↑ “OFSI is the authority for implementing the UK’s financial sanctions on behalf of HM Treasury. OFSI helps to ensure that financial sanctions are properly understood, implemented and enforced in the UK.” UK Government, ‘Russia sanctions: guidance’, 3 July 2023 (accessed 17 July 2023)
- ↑ Q125
- ↑ The original deadline for written evidence was May 2022; the Government’s evidence was submitted in October 2022.
- ↑ UK Government, ‘National Security Council’ (accessed 17 July 2023)
- ↑ Q135 [Ben Fender]
- ↑ Q114 [Leo Docherty]. Ben Fender elaborated that the Unit “convenes people from human rights, Africa, and the multilateral people who look at policy on private military companies, and so on”. Q130
- ↑ Qq114–115
- ↑ Q128
- ↑ Q117
