To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many public consultations were held by his Department in each of the last three years; and how many respondents took part in each consultation. (198636)

The number of public consultations conducted by the Department for Work and Pensions in the last three years has been as follows:

Providing a full answer to the second part of the question could be done only at disproportionate cost. The number of responses to our consultations questions varies greatly. For example, we received over 450 formal written submissions to our recent Welfare Reform Green Paper consultation, but this represents only a small part of the picture, because in addition we received over 2,000 posts in two internet-based discussion forums, and a large amount of face-to-face input at a range of different meetings. Whereas, for our more specialist, and often limited, consultations in the Private Pensions area typically between 50 and 100 responses are received.