To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs how many staff were employed through employment agencies in (a) her 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. (102964)

We do not have a central record of the numbers of staff employed under contract from agencies or the length of their contracts, and it would incur disproportionate cost to obtain this information. We do, however, have the costs for the past five financial years, which are: