From the article:
LONDON — Despite raising eyebrows last month for refusing to give a firm answer about the future of the U.K. Department for International Development, secretary of state Penny Mordaunt has again claimed that DFID is not an “independent” department in a letter obtained by Devex on Monday.
In a letter to Preet Gill — the Labour Party’s shadow minister for international development, who was seeking clarification of Mordaunt’s earlier remarks — the U.K. aid chief wrote that her department “could not … be described as ‘independent,’” and that she hoped to “move the debate about DFID on from being one about where our desks are situated to being focused on delivering the global goals.”
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Ian Mitchell, a senior policy fellow at the Center for Global Development think tank, told Devex by email that he would “welcome DFID working more closely with other government departments — using all our policy levers ... on investment, environment, health, and migration to accelerate progress towards the global goals ... But ... it’s unusual for a Cabinet Minister to assert their department’s lack of independence — [the] Treasury and Cabinet Office work across Whitehall, and may have loaned staff [to other departments] to assist on Brexit — but you wouldn’t hear their ministers say those departments aren’t independent. That leaves the impression this is about signalling future direction.”