To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many staff in (a) his Department and (b) its agencies have been seconded to public relations or public affairs firms or consultancies in each of the last five years. (222198)

Information on the number of staff in (a) the Department for Work and Pensions and (b) its agencies that have been seconded to public relations or public affairs firms or consultancies in each of the last five years is not available in the format requested.

The Department introduced a new personnel computer system incrementally from November 2006, being fully implemented by April 2007. Since April 2007 details of secondments out have been recorded under general headings. The name of the organisation is given but no details of the type of organisation.

To extract more detailed information from individual records under this category would be at disproportionate cost.

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many staff from public relations or public affairs firms or consultancies have been seconded to (a) his Department and (b) its agencies in each of the last five years. (222199)

Information on numbers of staff from public relations or public affairs firms or consultancies that have been have been seconded to (a) the Department for Work and Pensions and (b) agencies of the Department for Work and Pensions is not collected centrally. This is handled locally by individual businesses. This information is therefore not available in the format requested.

To extract more detailed information from individual records under this category would be at disproportionate cost.