Serious Fraud Office: Contracts

To ask the Solicitor-General with how many external contractors the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) has contracts; what estimate she has made of the average annual cost to the public purse of such contracts; and how many such contractors have held contracts with the SFO in each of the last 10 years. (215314)

The Serious Fraud Office (SFO) does not keep records of the number of external contractors it employs. The cost of all non-permanent staff employed at the SFO (including external barristers) for each of the last 10 years is as follows:

Financial year	Expenditure (£)
2007-08	11,521,000
2006-07	10,312,000
2005-06	11,845,000
2004-05	9,492,000
2003-04	8,566,000
2002-03	6,759,000
2001-02	6,596,000
2000-01	5,316,000
1999-2000	4,004,000
1998-99	4,750,000

Volume 479: debated on Thursday 17 July 2008