To ask the President of the Council if she will list each of the functions relating to the payroll for which her Department is responsible, indicating the management systems purchased, all subcontractors involved in the work, co-operative arrangements with other Departments and the costs of the systems and processes in the last year for which figures are available. [10746]

The collation and processing of payments to my Department's staff are carried out within the Privy Council Office; the staff costs associated with this work are estimated at £1,900 in the year 1996–97. The actual payments are made by Chessington Computer Services Ltd., which uses the SPIRE—standard payroll input and retrieval—management system; the cost of this contract in the year 1996–97 was £4,900.