I am writing to let you know about our decision to close our small residual post in Kingstown, St Vincent & the Grenadines, at the end of this financial year. As you may recall, we carried out a review of our representation of the Caribbean in late 2003, which led to the difficult decision not to replace our Resident Representative in St Vincent & the Grenadines.

  When we implemented this decision, on the departure of the incumbent the end of 2005, we retained a residual administrative office in Kingstown to answer enquiries and handle the small amount of straightforward consular work, with colleagues from Barbados coming in to handle more difficult cases. We decided to review this operation after a while to see wheter it offered best value for money.

  Various practical factors have led to an early review of the situation. We retained an office building, which we own, and 2.5 local members of staff in Kingstown. We have been told that the building is likely to cost us around £250,000 in the near future for essential work to meet health and safety standards and to preserve the building. There are very few alternative properties. Of our remaining staff members, two have employment contracts which expire on 31 March 2007, one of whom is due to retire.

  Much of the staff time in Kingstown is taken up with running the office. Additionally they handle enquiries, carry out consular work and support visits by staff from Bridgetown. The number of British tourists is fairly low since there are no international long-haul flights and few hotel rooms. In the last year, Kingstown has issued two emergency passports, had one consular incident, and had one arrest that led to the imprisonment of a British national. DFID does not have any bilateral programmes operating in St Vincent and the Grenadines.

  Given the very low workload of the office, and it's correspondingly small contribution to the UK's international priorities, we believe it is in the UK's best interests to close the office and appoint an Honorary Consul to deal in the first instance with consular cases.

  This decision will save operating costs in the region of £76,000 pa, expenditure of around £250,000 on essential building work, and will result in revenue from the sale of the building. It will have little impact on our operation in St Vincent. The High Commissioner and other accredited staff will continue to visit from Barbados and we will appoint Honorary Consul to cover immediate consular emergencies.

  I will be happy to let you have any further details you may require.

Margaret Beckett

2 February 2007