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5 Dec 2006 : Column 358W—continued
| Table 5: Summary of bonuses paid | ||||
| Total | 2006-07( 1) | 2005-06 | 2004-05 | 2003-04 |
| (1 )For SBA's April to October 2006 only. (2) Staff numbers taken from departmental end of year accounts made up of the total workforce. | ||||
Defence Medical Services
Peter Viggers: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what the (a) establishment and (b) manning levels are of doctors in Defence Medical Services, broken down by main specialties of practice. [106784]
Derek Twigg [holding answer 4 December 2006]: The following table shows the trained strength against establishment for consultants in the Defence Medical Services, broken down by specialty, as at 1 July 2006.
| Specialty | Establishment by Specialty | Trained Strength |
| (1 )The personnel filling Command and Staff posts are counted against their specialty in the above table. Notes: 1. Figures are as at 1 July 2006. 2. Figures over 100 are rounded to nearest 10. Source: DMSD | ||
As explained in a previous answer on 4 September 2006, Official Report, column 1692W, to the hon. Member for North Devon (Nick Harvey), “Establishment” is the listing of an individual unit’s funded appointments/posts. It is different to the “Requirement”, which is those posts necessary to support Defence Planning Assumptions. In light of the defence planning assumptions contained in Defence Strategic Guidance 05, revised manning requirement figures are expected to be available before the end of this year. The new requirement figures will indicate the number and type of Defence Medical Services personnel necessary to support operations and those needed in non-operational posts requiring uniformed personnel.
Defence Schools Presentation Scheme
Mark Williams: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will make a statement on the future funding of the Defence Schools Presentation Scheme. [102445]
Derek Twigg: For the last three years the Department has funded Defence Schools Presentations Teams (DSPT) which tour secondary schools giving a half day interactive presentation about defence to 14 to 16-year-olds. There are five such teams covering different areas of the country, and over the last year they visited about 460 schools (about 10 per cent. of the total number in the country serving this age group). These presentations are generally well received and do allow us to get some of our messages over about the importance of defence. The investment here is about £2.1 million a year and we have reviewed our approach.
The Department will be introducing a new schools e-learning product. Through creating an educational website called “Defence Dynamics”, our main focus will be to provide Secondary School teachers of 14 to 16-year-olds with pre-packaged electronic lesson plans with Defence themes. Defence Dynamics will start with the delivery in September 2007 of 40 plus lesson plans with audio-visuals in Science, Maths and English based on scenarios that reflect the professional work of the MOD and the armed forces worldwide. The material will be developed to support the requirements of the school curriculum and across a range of subject areas in the longer term. MOD will be working closely with DfES and the devolved Government education Departments in the UK. Initially the Defence Dynamics programme will run for two years with the aim to develop this for the long-term. A similar e-learning approach has been used successfully in Australian schools for three years (“Defence 2020”).
The intention is to disband the touring DSPT in July 2007 (the end of this academic year) and launch the new schools e-learning product in September 2007. The Department will be maintaining its engagement with schools and switching to an approach that will enable us to reach many more children than are visited by the touring DSPT, and at a significantly lower cost.
The armed forces engagement with youth activities continues—each service of the armed forces has a presentation team and these remain in place. There is also a wide range of single service youth activity.
Departmental Archives
Mr. Hancock: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what factors were taken into account when the original decision was made to store in his Department’s archives the two files referred to in his answer of 7 November 2006, Official Report, column 1453W. [103080]
Derek Twigg: File WO208/3548 and extract WO208/3654, were originally reviewed in accordance with the terms of the Public Records Acts 1958 and 1967. They were assessed as being suitable for permanent preservation at the Public Record Office (now The National Archives) but were judged then to be too sensitive for release. They were therefore retained in the Department in accordance with section 3(4) of the Public Records Act with the approval of the Lord Chancellor. Their sensitivity would routinely have been re-reviewed every 10 years.
These items were retained with similarly sensitive material in the central Ministry of Defence archive, which, in 2003 was found to have been contaminated by asbestos. WO208/3654 has since been re-constituted, re-reviewed and released to The National Archives. Unfortunately a search of the list of material removed from the contaminated archive has shown that WO208/3548 is not recorded. Further searches will be made for this file as the scanning project to recover contaminated files proceeds.
Departmental Contracts
Mr. Gerald Howarth: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence (1) from which companies his Department charters (a) B757s and (b) DC10s; and what the value is of each contract involved; [107209]
(2) which contracts his Department has with Omni Air; and what the value is of each contract. [107234]
Mr. Ingram: The MOD charters Boeing 757s and DC10s through recognised brokers who have contracts with various companies including Titan, Omni Air and Astraeus. The MOD does not hold contracts directly with the charter companies, and therefore the value of each contract is a matter between the brokers and companies. During the current financial year, the total value of charter costs with these companies, and others, has been approximately £l,531,000 for Boeing 757s and £9,772,000 for DC10s.
Departmental Reports
Mr. Harper: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will place in the Library copies of his Department’s (a) Continuous Working Patterns Survey report, (b) Leave Survey report, (c) Pay Analysis—Current and Future Pay report and (d) Local Overseas Allowances Survey for each year since 1997-98. [102556]
Mr. Ingram: Copies of the Continuous Working Patterns and Leave Survey reports for each year since 2000-01 are available in the Library of the House.
The earlier reports are held in very fragmented form and I will write to the hon. Member when the summaries of the reports for the previous years have been completed. I will also place copies of them in the Library of the House.
The outputs from the Pay Analyses—Current and Future Pay Report and the Local Overseas Allowance Survey are purely unrounded numerical data held in spreadsheets and no accessible reports are available.
Departmental Staff
Dr. Cable: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how many staff were employed through employment agencies in (a) his Department and (b) each of its agencies in each of the last five years for which information is available; and what the (i) average and (ii) longest time was for which these temporary workers were employed in each year. [102954]
Derek Twigg: The information requested is not held centrally and could be provided only at disproportionate cost.
Dr. Cable: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence whether people employed (a) through employment agencies and (b) on a consultancy basis are included in the calculations for the full-time equivalent staff mentioned in his Department’s annual report. [102990]
Dr. Cable: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what his Department’s annual budget is for employing workers on a consultancy basis; and how much of this budget was used in each of the last five years for which records are available. [103032]
Derek Twigg: My Department has no single centralised budget for consultancy spending.
The MOD’s budget has a number of layers of delegated budgetary responsibility and budget holders make decisions as to their particular requirements to employ consultants on a case-by-case basis.
Summaries of MOD expenditure on external assistance, of which consultancy is a part, are available in the Library of the House for the years 1995-96 to 2005-06.
John McDonnell: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how many staff have left his Department under voluntary early release schemes in each of the last four quarters; and what the financial cost of these departures has been. [103309]
Derek Twigg: This information is not held centrally and could be provided only at disproportionate cost. Data are held on the number of staff that have left the Department but not whether their release has been under a voluntary early release scheme.
John McDonnell: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what the total expenditure on (a) agency staff and (b) consultants was in his Department for each of the last four quarters for which figures are available. [103310]
Derek Twigg: The information requested is not available on a quarterly basis and could be provided only at a disproportionate cost.
However, summaries of MOD's annual expenditure on External Assistance, of which consultancy is a part, are available in the Library of the House for the years 1995-96 to 2005-06.
Mr. Hayes: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how many temporary employees were contracted to work for his Department in 2005-06; and what the total cost of such employees was in (a) 2005-06 and (b) 1997-98. [106690]
Derek Twigg: The information requested is shown in the following table:
| Number of temporary staff( 1) | Gross pay (£ million) | NI and pension contributions (£ million) | Total cost (£ million) | |
| (1 )“Temporary staff” has been defined as staff on a fixed term appointment or casual contract at any time during the year. (2) Figures for employer pension contributions for 1,573 industrial staff on casual contracts in 1997-98 are unavailable. However, in the vast majority of cases no contributions would have been made. Note: All figures relate to the parent Department only and exclude MOD's Trading Funded agencies. | ||||
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