To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how many staff were employed through employment agencies in (a) his 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. (102954)

The information requested is not held centrally and could be provided only at disproportionate cost.

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence whether people employed (a) through employment agencies and (b) on a consultancy basis are included in the calculations for the full-time equivalent staff mentioned in his Department’s annual report. (102990)

No.

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what his Department’s annual budget is for employing workers on a consultancy basis; and how much of this budget was used in each of the last five years for which records are available. (103032)

My Department has no single centralised budget for consultancy spending.

The MOD’s budget has a number of layers of delegated budgetary responsibility and budget holders make decisions as to their particular requirements to employ consultants on a case-by-case basis.

Summaries of MOD expenditure on external assistance, of which consultancy is a part, are available in the Library of the House for the years 1995-96 to 2005-06.

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how many staff have left his Department under voluntary early release schemes in each of the last four quarters; and what the financial cost of these departures has been. (103309)

This information is not held centrally and could be provided only at disproportionate cost. Data are held on the number of staff that have left the Department but not whether their release has been under a voluntary early release scheme.

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what the total expenditure on (a) agency staff and (b) consultants was in his Department for each of the last four quarters for which figures are available. (103310)

The information requested is not available on a quarterly basis and could be provided only at a disproportionate cost.

However, summaries of MOD's annual expenditure on External Assistance, of which consultancy is a part, are available in the Library of the House for the years 1995-96 to 2005-06.

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how many temporary employees were contracted to work for his Department in 2005-06; and what the total cost of such employees was in (a) 2005-06 and (b) 1997-98. (106690)

The information requested is shown in the following table: