| Synopsis: |
The Consular Service of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office provides vital support to British nationals overseas. It offers a wide range of services, handling anything from lost passports to kidnap, a major crisis evacuation or verification of a document. It is the FCO's public face, and it is central to its reputation at home. Britons undertaking more adventurous travel, large expatriate populations and a series of major overseas crises have tested the Consular Service in recent years. In 2013, the FCO dealt with over 450,000 consular customers, over 17,000 of whom received personal assistance. The Consular Service has responded with a "strategic shift" to provide a more standardised and professional service. However, the strategic shift to a "smaller and better" consular service has also meant that some services have been limited or withdrawn, and standardisation has meant the end of so-called "over-service" as well as under-service. The FCO has consequently put great emphasis on encouraging self-help, managing expectations and explaining the limits of its assistance to British nationals.Despite these efforts to explain to the public what the FCO can and cannot do, there was still a significant gap between the high expectations of the public and the reality of what the FCO could provide. |