| Previous Section | Index | Home Page |
18 Feb 2008 : Column 96W—continued
Departmental Manpower
Dr. Fox: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what estimate he has made of his Department's authorised civilian work force in the financial years (a) 2008-09 and (b) 2010-11. [185766]
Derek Twigg: The MOD is currently undertaking a number of programmes that will ultimately result in a smaller civilian work force. Estimates of the number of civilians have not been finalised.
Departmental Marketing
Mr. Pickles: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how many branded plastic bags his Department has purchased in the last 24 months for which figures are available; and at what cost. [176505]
Derek Twigg: The information is not held centrally and could be provided at disproportionate cost only.
Departmental Ministerial Policy Advisers
Mr. Walker: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will list the special advisers employed in his Department since 6 May 1997; and what the (a) start and (b) end date of employment was in each case. [184365]
Des Browne: I refer the hon. Member to the answer given by my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Defence on 14 January 2008, Official Report, column 884W, to the hon. Member for Brent, East (Sarah Teather).
Departmental Pay
Mr. Gerald Howarth: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what the (a) net pay bill cost and (b) net percentage increase to the pay bill was of implementing his Department’s civilian pay rises in each financial year from 1996-97 to 2007-08. [180298]
Derek Twigg: The civilian staff pay bill costs are as follows:
| Total pay costs (£ billion) | |
| Note: This table shows the total civilian paybill costs for all industrial and non-industrial civil servants employed by MOD, excluding trading funds and locally engaged civilians. The costs include pay, employer’s ERNIC and pension contributions. They also include an element of pay allowances such as Recruitment and Retention Allowances (both locational and functional). | |
The MOD civilian work force consists of myriad groups of staff which are subject to different pay bargaining processes and different annual pay settlements. The information requested could therefore be provided only at disproportionate cost. Pay settlements are implemented in accordance with Government pay policy.
Departmental Public Relations
Mr. Jeremy Browne: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how many external contracts his Department held with public relations companies in each of the last 10 years; and what the total cost of those contracts was. [183198]
Derek Twigg: The information requested is not held centrally and could be provided only at disproportionate cost.
Departmental Reports
Dr. Fox: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what reports Ministers in his Department have received from (a) civil servants and (b) military personnel in the last three months. [186053]
Derek Twigg: Ministers routinely receive reports, oral and written, from civil servants and military personnel on a wide range of subjects. Information on the total number of reports and the subjects they have covered is not held centrally and could be provided only at disproportionate cost.
Dr. Fox: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what reports have been commissioned by Ministers in his Department in the last three months. [186056]
Des Browne: Ministers routinely commission reports, oral and written, on a wide range of subjects. Information on the total number of reports and the subjects they have covered is not held centrally and could be provided only at disproportionate cost.
Departmental Sick Leave
John Smith: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence when his Department plans to undertake an evaluation of its new sickness absence management programme. [185989]
Derek Twigg: A full post-project evaluation of the sickness absence management (SAM) programme was conducted in October 2007. As a consequence, the SAM policy has been rewritten in order to make it more explanatory and to include the interaction with the newly introduced patient care pathway. The policy is kept under constant review to ensure that it remains effective.
Employment Agencies
Mr. Hoban: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how much his Department paid to recruitment agencies in relation to departmental appointments in each year since 1997. [184916]
Derek Twigg:
Decisions on the appointment of recruitment agencies to assist with external recruitment
are delegated to many different parts of the Department, and therefore the information requested could be provided only at disproportionate cost.
All recruitment of civil servants to the Department complies with the code for recruitment provided by the Civil Service Commissioners. A management area may employ a recruitment agency when it judges that this is necessary to attract the best candidates for the post.
Estonia: Hacking
Mr. Evans: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what recent discussions he has had with his NATO counterparts on the distributed denial of service attack on Estonian critical infrastructure in May 2007. [185953]
Mr. Bob Ainsworth: The disruption that Estonia faced in May 2007 underlines the importance of the work that NATO is carrying out on cyber defence and the protection of critical infrastructure. Cyber defence is discussed by NATO Defence Ministers on a regular basis, most recently at their meeting in Vilnius which the Secretary of State for Defence attended on 7-8 February.
EU Battlegroups
Dr. Fox: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence whether non-NATO European Union member states providing EU battlegroups in support of the EU’s battlegroup concept train to NATO common standards. [186054]
Des Browne: The EU battlegroup concept directs that whenever it is possible and applicable to do so, battlegroup packages must be trained to and able to meet the same standards and criteria required for similar formations assigned to the NATO Response Force.
Fort Halstead: Manpower
Bill Wiggin: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what the greatest number of people employed at Fort Halstead in Kent has been; and in which year that number of people were employed. [176277]
Mr. Bob Ainsworth [ h olding answer 7 January 2008]: Prior to 2001 the site at Fort Halstead was operated by DERA, the Defence Evaluation and Research Agency. Following the split of DERA in July 2001 the site has been owned and managed by the privatised company QinetiQ, but has retained an enclave of staff from the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl), via a formal 99 year lease.
Dstl only has accurate figures from 1 July 2001, vesting day. On this date Dstl had 529 employees based at Fort Halstead, over the years this has increased to a maximum of 716 on 1 February 2008.
France
Mr. Hague: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what discussions his Department has had with the French commission undertaking a review of French defence and national security; and if he will make a statement. [186709]
Des Browne: UK and French officials meet regularly to discuss defence and security issues, both bilaterally and in the context of NATO and the EU. In addition, senior officials in the Ministry of Defence, the Cabinet Office and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office held discussions with Mr. Mallet, the Head of the French commission, during his visit to the UK in October 2007.
Future Rapid Effect System
Mr. Kevan Jones: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence (1) what the planned in-service date is of the future rapid effect system; and if he will make a statement; [185470]
(2) if he will make a statement on the Future Rapid Effect System. [185471]
Mr. Bob Ainsworth: The Future Rapid Effect System (FRES) will deliver a fleet of wheeled and tracked armoured vehicles capable of operating across the spectrum of operations and protecting against the most likely threats. We are making significant progress with FRES, and I announced the successful completion of the utility vehicle design trials at the end of November. We have undertaken further work and will make a definitive announcement on a preferred design to be taken forward in due course.
In service dates are not normally set until the main investment decision.
Gurkhas
Mark Pritchard: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence (1) if he will put in place measures to (a) reduce the number of serving Royal Gurkha Rifles personnel who are leaving the British Army in order to apply for indefinite leave to remain (ILR) in the United Kingdom and (b) extend ILR status to such personnel; [185249]
(2) if he will extend home student status to the children of serving Royal Gurkha Rifles personnel. [185251]
Derek Twigg: Gurkha service in the British Army is enabled through an agreement made between the Governments of the UK, Nepal and India in 1947—the Tripartite Agreement. Gurkhas are recruited in Nepal and remain Nepalese citizens throughout their service in the Brigade of Gurkhas. This is in line with the wishes of the Government of Nepal.
There is no evidence to suggest that significant numbers of Gurkha personnel are applying to leave the British Army early in order to seek indefinite leave to remain in the United Kingdom. Under their new terms and conditions of service, introduced last year, Gurkhas now have the opportunity to transfer to the wider Army after five years, where they would cease to be Gurkhas and serve as Nepalese Service Personnel. They would then be entitled to apply for naturalisation under the normal immigration rules for Her Majesty’s forces.
Government policy on eligibility for home student status is the responsibility of the Department of Innovation, Universities and Skills (DIUS). Under current arrangements, dependents of Gurkha soldiers are ineligible for home student status while their parents remain Nepalese citizens. The Ministry of Defence is currently working with the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills to address this issue.
Gurkhas: Higher Education
Mr. Gray: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will assess the merits of helping serving Gurkhas who apply for indefinite leave to remain in the UK with the payment of university fees for their children. [186969]
Derek Twigg: Serving Gurkhas cannot apply for indefinite leave to remain in the UK. Gurkha service in the British Army is enabled through an agreement made between the Governments of the UK, Nepal and India in 1947—the Tripartite Agreement. Gurkhas are recruited in Nepal and remain Nepalese citizens throughout their service in the Brigade of Gurkhas. This is in line with the wishes of the Government of Nepal.
Under their new terms and conditions of service, introduced last year, Gurkhas now have the opportunity to apply to transfer to the wider Army after five years, where they would cease to be Gurkhas and serve as Nepalese Service Personnel. They would then be entitled to apply for naturalisation under the normal immigration rules for Her Majesty's Forces.
Under current arrangements, dependants of Gurkha soldiers are ineligible for home student status while their parents remain Nepalese citizens. The Ministry of Defence is currently working on this issue with the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills, which has responsibility for Government policy in this area.
Individual Resettlement Training Costs Grant
Dr. Fox: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what his Department's budget is for the individual resettlement training costs grant in financial years (a) 2008-09, (b) 2009-10 and (c) 2010-11. [179674]
Derek Twigg: The information is not held in the format requested and could be provided only at disproportionate cost. The three single services operate different budgetary regimes which, in the case of the RAF, means that individual resettlement training costs grant budgetary costs are not separately identified but are subsumed into wider training costs budgets, which are then devolved down to station level.
I am able to provide the following details for the Royal Navy and Army:
| £ million | |
Intimidation
Mr. Hoban: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how many cases of bullying have been reported in (a) his Department and (b) its agencies in each of the last 12 months. [182835]
Derek Twigg: For the MOD civil service the number of bullying cases in the Ministry of Defence and its agencies is as follows:
| Bullying cases( 1) | |
| (1) The figures show the number of formal complaints raised through the Department's harassment and bullying complaints procedure where investigation by a harassment investigation officer has been requested. Figures for complaints raised informally or resolved locally are not held centrally and could be provided only at disproportionate cost. | |
| Next Section | Index | Home Page |