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Departmental Information Officers

Volume 482: debated on Wednesday 12 November 2008

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs how many press officers were employed by (a) his Department and (b) his Department’s arm's length bodies in each year since 2001. (233425)

The following table shows the number of press officers and media relations staff employed by DEFRA and its agencies in the past two financial years. Information for earlier years and for DEFRA’s NDPBs could be provided only at disproportionate cost.

Department/agency

2007-08

2008-09

DEFRA

20

15

Animal Health

0.25

0.25

Central Science Laboratory

0

0

Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science

1

1

Government Decontamination Service

0

0

Marine and Fisheries Agency

0.1

0.1

Rural Payments Agency1

1

1

Veterinary Laboratories Agency

0

0

Veterinary Medicines Agency

0

0

1 RPA employed agency people during the period and their role included communications tasks outside the specific press office/media function.