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20 Nov 2008 : Column 734W—continued
2. Durrants has provided a press cutting service to DWP over the past three years.
The cost of this contract is commercially sensitive and thus cannot be disclosed.
3. Press Association—Mediapoint
The cost of this contract is commercially sensitive and thus cannot be disclosed.
DWP agencies are covered by the departmental contracts aforementioned.
In addition, a separate broadcast monitoring service provided by Media Measurement for the Child Support Agency (CSA), now Child Maintenance Enforcement Commission (CMEC), has been in place since December, 2006.
Romeike provided a media monitoring service to Jobcentre Plus between April 2005 and July 2008.
(c) Non-departmental public bodies (NDPBs). The NDPBs make their own arrangements for the provision of these services and DWP has no control over their expenditure. An exception is the Office for Disability Issues (ODI) which has used the Durrants contract for their press cutting service since the beginning of 2008.
Departmental Temporary Employment
Mr. Waterson: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (1) how many temporary workers (a) are employed by his Department and (b) were employed by his Department in each year since 1997; [231835]
(2) how much his Department spent on temporary workers in each of the last 10 years. [231836]
Jonathan Shaw: The Department for Work and Pensions was formed in June 2001. The first full year that staffing statistics for the Department are available is from 1 April 2002 to 31 March 2003.
Staff numbers in the Department are counted and recorded on the last day of each month. The number and costs of staff directly employed in each year from 2002-03 onwards is shown in the following table. Numbers are shown both as an average for each year and as at 31 March each year. Typically numbers of temporary staff tend to be higher during the summer months when there is a need to cover absences during the peak leave period.
| Financial year | Average number of temporary staff employed | Number of temporary staff employed at 31 March each year | Cost of temporary staff (£ million) |
| Notes: 1. Staff figures are full time equivalents. 2. Costs are rounded to nearest £1,000. | |||
Given that temporary staff can be employed for periods of between one day and 51 weeks neither the average number nor the end of year number will necessarily correlate with the annual cost.
The number of temporary staff directly employed by the Department as at 30 September 2008 was 2,854 full time equivalents. The cost of temporary staff, to date, in the current financial year (2008-09) is £14.696 million.
Departmental Training
David T.C. Davies: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how much his Department spent on external training courses for departmental staff in (a) 2005, (b) 2006, (c) 2007 and (d) 2008; and which external organisations were paid by the Department to provide such courses in each year. [230490]
Jonathan Shaw: Information about the cost of external training courses and the identity of training providers could be obtained only at disproportionate cost.
Departmental Written Questions
Mr. Gibb: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many questions for written answer were tabled to his Department in Session (a) 2002-03, (b) 2003-04, (c) 2004-05, (d) 2005-06, (e) 2006-07 and (f) 2007-08 to date; and how many were (i) answered substantively and (ii) not answered on grounds of disproportionate cost. [235378]
Jonathan Shaw: Information on disproportionate cost replies is not collated centrally and could be provided only at disproportionate cost. The number of questions tabled to the Department for which replies were given(1) is in the following table:
(1) Questions which were subsequently withdrawn by hon. Members or transferred to other Government Departments for reply have not been included.
| Parliamentary Session | Number of questions |
Disability Living Allowance
Jenny Willott: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what the (a) average and (b) maximum duration of a fixed award of (i) disability living allowance and (ii) attendance allowance was in each of the last 10 years, broken down by condition. [230090]
Jonathan Shaw: The available information has been placed in the Library.
Jenny Willott: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many awards have been made for (a) disability living allowance and (b) attendance allowance under special award rules in each of the last 10 years; how many were (i) made for three years initially, (ii) paid for the full three years and (iii) renewed after three years, broken down by category of condition. [230091]
Jonathan Shaw: The available information is in the following tables.
| Attendance allowance special rules cases with initial awards of three years in the last 10 years: Great Britain—durations of award | |||||
| Duration | |||||
| As at May: | All special rules awards | Up to three years | Three years ( one month either side) | Over three years | Indefinite awards |
| “—” = Nil or negligible. (1) Figures are subject to a high degree of sampling error and should only be used as a guide. Notes: 1. Figures are rounded to the nearest 100. 2. Totals show the number of people in receipt of an allowance, and exclude people with entitlement where the payment has been suspended, for example if they are in hospital. 3. Although the preferred data source for benefit statistics is 100 per cent. Work and Pensions Longitudinal Study, the 5 per cent. sample data has been used in this case because it provides some detail not yet available from the 100 per cent. data sources, in particular, more complete information on the disabling conditions of disability living allowance and attendance allowance claimants. Source: Department for Work and Pensions, Information Directorate, 5 per cent. sample | |||||
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