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Departmental Manpower

Volume 491: debated on Tuesday 21 April 2009

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice how many officials in his Department have been working on matters related to the Governance of Britain agenda since July 2007. (268205)

The Governance of Britain Green Paper set out to tackle the problems that power remains too centralised and too concentrated in Government and some people have become cynical about the political process and disengaged from it. It also set out to explore how the United Kingdom can benefit from articulating a shared understanding of what it means to be British.

A team was set up within the Ministry of Justice to implement the proposals contained in the 2007 Green Paper to deliver these objectives. Numbers in the team varied, with the maximum being the equivalent of 21 permanent members of staff, added to which a number of other staff within the Constitution Directorate have contributed to the delivery of various of the proposals. It would, however, entail disproportionate cost to determine the precise number of staff time devoted to the delivery of each of the proposals in the Green Paper.