Foreign Office bids to save millions by moving out of London

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The move to the sprawling new town 50 miles up the M1 from Whitehall is part of a secret Foreign Office money-saving plan to move mandarins out of London.

With the Foreign & Commonwealth Office (FCO) needing to save hundreds of millions of pounds to fund its operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, the roles of its 1,000-plus staff in the historic Old Admiralty Building are being re-examined.

A copy of the minutes of the Foreign Office management board, headed by Sir Peter Ricketts, the head of the diplomatic service, obtained by The Mail on Sunday under the Freedom of Information Act, reveals details of the plan.

The Old Admiralty Building is the second-largest Foreign Office building in Whitehall and costs about £1.5million a year to heat, light and maintain.

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Moving out: A Milton Keynes base would be considerably cheaper than this one in Whitehall, which costs £1.5million pounds a year to maintain

It is home to some of the FCO's less glamorous functionaries, including the treaty section, which advises on international agreements, the language training department, the protocol directorate and the travel advice unit, which warns of international hotspots.

First to move will be the legalisation department, which provides confirmation that a signature, seal or stamp on any international contract or other paperwork is genuine.

This department is to be relocated to a new office in central Milton Keynes in a few months, with only a small "drop box" office left in London.

Last night, a senior FCO official said it was reviewing the cost of staff in London and "examining moving support staff to other areas".

The latest moves come after the Mail On Sunday revealed how the department was planning to sell off palatial embassies abroad, including those in Washington and Paris, to save money, and rent more modest buildings instead.