Staff Costs

To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many staff the Department and each agency and non-departmental public body for which the Department is responsible had in each year since 1997; and what the cost of those staff was in each of those years. [122257]

The information is as follows:

Staffing

The staffing figures to reflect both NI Civil Servants and Home Civil Servants, in each year since 1997, for the Northern Ireland Office, the Northern Ireland Departments and their respective Agencies, are set out in Tables A and B.

The staffing figures for associated NDPBs are available from the Cabinet Office in its annual publication "Public Bodies". The information includes details of the number of staff employed by each NDPB at 31 March each year. "Public Bodies 2002" was published in January 2003. Copies of "Public Bodies" published each year since 1997 are available in the Libraries of both Houses.

Table A: Staffing—Northern Ireland Office and Agencies
	1997–98	1998–99	1999–2000	2000–01	2001–02	2002–03
Core Department	992	964	961	935	930	1,003
Agencies:
Compensation Agency	120	131	120	130	132	139
Forensic Science NI	122	120	118	122	130	132
NI Prison Service	3,212	3,017	2,730	2,119	2,124	1,989
Total	4,446	4,232	3,929	3,306	3,316	3,263

Table B: Staffing—Northern Ireland Departments and Agencies
	1997–98	1998–99	1999–2000	2000–01	2001–02	2002–03
Core NI Departments	6,312	5,941	5,866	7,529	7,896	8,937
Agencies:
Business Development Service	227	238	278	268	266	246
Child Support Agency	294	306	321	319	394	426
Construction Service	576	557	516	509	507	¹—
Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency	275	297	320	351	398	414
Driver and Vehicle Testing Agency	318	326	319	348	391	445
Environment and Heritage Service	352	360	354	372	410	522
Forest Service	—	412	395	387	372	360
Government Purchasing Agency	72	91	100	79	89	¹—
Industrial Research and Technology Unit	143	141	148	154	171	²—
Land Registers for NI	205	199	195	194	201	232
NI Health and Social Services Estates Agency³—	120	117	114	119	119	122
NI Statistics and Research Agency	177	219	255	290	301	318
Ordnance Survey NI	177	178	175	176	179	197
Planning Service	386	420	452	484	529	592
Public Record Office NI	62	67	68	70	69	73
Rate Collection Agency	256	250	233	238	234	261
Rivers Agency	460	431	420	402	408	441
Roads Service	2,207	2,163	2,162	2,175	2,230	2,214
Social Security Agency	5,555	5,582	5,526	5,732	6,091	6,194
Training and Employment Agency	1,318	1,365	1,269	¹—	¹—	¹—
Valuation and Lands Agency	270	222	267	268	279	261
Water Service	2,278	2,228	2,216	2,176	2,202	2,147
Sub-total	15,728	16,169	16,103	15,111	15,840	15,465
Total⁴—	22,040	22,110	21,969	22,640	23,736	24,402
¹ Part of NI Departmental Core in that year.
² Part of Invest NI (NDPB) in that year.
³ Average figures provided.
⁴ Excludes NI civil servants working in NDPBs.

Staff costs

With the introduction of Devolution in Northern Ireland in December 1999, Northern Ireland Departments restructured and increased in number from six to 11. In addition, as a consequence of the transitions to resource accounting, outturn information from 2000–01 onwards is held on a resource basis, prior to this only cash based information is available. For these reasons, the only years for which comparable outturn information is available is for 2000–01 onwards. However, the outturn information provided for 2002–03 is based on provisional outturn and therefore is not directly comparable to 2000–01 or 2001–02, which are based on final outturn.

Staffing costs for the Northern Ireland Office and the Northern Ireland Departments and their respective Agencies are set out in Table C.

The staffing costs for associated NDPBs of the Northern Ireland Office and the Northern Ireland Departments are available from the annual accounts of each body.

Table C: Staffing cost for Departments and their Agencies
£000
Department	2000–01	2001–02	2002–03
Northern Ireland Office	115,000	115,000	119,000
of which:
Compensation Agency	2,470	2,605	2,915
Forensic Science Northern Ireland	3,549	3,743	4,092
Compensation Agency	82,256	70,867	75,069
DARD	76,575	86,320	83,804
of which:
Forest Service Agency	6,989	6,479	5,890
Rivers Agency	8,606	10,219	9,064
DCAL	8,642	9,609	12,388
of which:
Ordnance Survey (NI)	4,625	4,801	5,693
Public Records Office (NI)	1,493	1,509	1,784
DE	14,767	16,443	16,893
DEL	30,698	28,543	33,731
DETI	27,774	29,623	16,548
of which:
Industrial Research and Technology Unit	4,023	4,573	¹—
DFP	54,121	65,429	64.944
of which:
Business Development Service	5,880	5.905	5,755
Rates Collection Agency	4,273	4,106	4,817
Valuation and Lands Agency	7,292	7,910	7,430
NI Statistics and Research Agency	6,438	8,743	7,011
Central Procurement Directorate	2,104	2,069	2,238
Construction Service	15,005	14,565	14,194
DHSSPS	24,682	26,659	28,584
of which:
Health Estates Agency	4,028	4,120	4,309
DOE	33,074	32,800	44,619
of which:
Driver and Vehicle Testing Agency	0	617	622
Driver and Vehicle Licensing NI	9,081	7,338	11,253
Planning Service	11,166	12,090	14,022
Environment and Heritage Service	8,329	9,005	12,287
DRD	115,317	108,368	112,534
of which:
Roads Service	50,334	46,420	48,900
Water Service	52,713	49,815	51,046
DSD	131,596	144,027	154,792
of which:
Child Support Agency	5,767	7,278	8,104
Social Security Agency	82,954	91,510	98,390
OFMDFM	7,766	9,675	11,475
Total	525,012	557,496	580,312
¹IRTU became part of Invest NI from 2002–03 and is included in DETI composite figure for that year.

Notes:

1. Figure work for 2000–01 and 2001–02 based on Final Outturn.

2. Figure work for 2002–03 based on Provisional Outturn.

Volume 410: debated on Thursday 11 September 2003