Foreign Office woman joins Bosnia team

Civil Service row: Top diplomat rejects idea of sexual discrimination in allocating top jobs to high-flying women

MICHAEL SHERIDAN

Diplomatic Editor

The most senior woman at the Foreign Office, Dame Pauline Neville-Jones, is to take a temporary post in the Bosnia peace implementation team before joining the corporate banking arm of NatWest in June.

The head of the Diplomatic Service, Sir John Coles, today rejects "the insinuation" that her decision to leave the Foreign Office was due to sexual discrimination in the award of senior jobs. In a letter to The Independent Sir John says that appointments are made on merit alone, although he concedes that he wants to see "a better balance" between men and women in the Foreign Office.

Dame Pauline, 56, had been considering her future while on leave after stepping down as Political Director of the Foreign Office. She is said to have turned down the job of ambassador to Bonn after her preferred post, ambassador to Paris, was given to Michael Jay, a European policy specialist. Plans to tailor a senior foreign policy position for her in the Cabinet Office also failed to meet with her agreement.

She will now become a special adviser until the end of June to Carl Bildt, the High Representative overseeing the civilian international effort to enforce the Bosnia peace agreement. Then she will take up a post as managing director with NatWest Markets.

Senior diplomats claim that personalitieslay behind this falling-out. There is no doubt, however, that the public disillusion of the highest- flying woman in the Foreign Office has caused embarrassment at the top. Officials point out that the Foreign Office has introduced career breaks following maternity leave, flexi- and part-time working, together with jobsharing schemes to encourage women to stay in the service. But there are only seven women ambassadors and no woman has yet reached a "grade one" top job.