Details of how much the Department (including Executive Agencies) spent on salaries for communications and press officers, where information is available, is illustrated in the table at (a).
The position in relation to the Department’s non-departmental public bodies is outlined at (b).
(a) Details of the spend on salaries for press/communications officers in DEFRA (including Executive Agencies) over the last five years:
Department/Agency 2004-05 2005-06 2006-07 2007-08 2008-09 Core-DEFRA1 1,230 1,616 1,436 1,256 892 Animal Health (AH)2 — — — — — Marine and Fisheries Agency (MFA)3 — — — 36 42 Veterinary Medicines Directorate (VMD)4 — — — — — Rural Payments Agency (RPA)5 — — 506 1,039 818 Veterinary Laboratories Agency (VLA) 21 24 25 26 56 Centre for Fisheries, Aquaculture and Science (CEFAS) 27 28 31 32 34 The Food and Environment Research Agency (FERA)6 — — — — — 1 The figures for Core-DEFRA, exclude costs relating to agency staff, contractors and consultants. 2 Details are not held centrally and Animal Health have indicated could be obtained only at disproportionate cost. 3 The Marine and Fisheries Agency was created on 1 October 2005. No information is available for 2004-05 at all, as there was no communications/press officer provision in the Agency or for 2005-06 and 2006-07. A dedicated senior information officer joined MFA on 12 May 2007. 4 The Veterinary Medicines Directorate (VMD) do not have any dedicated communications or press staff. Any comms work is carried out on behalf of VMD, by Core-DEFRA’s press office, on an ad-hoc basis. 5 The Communications Directorate in the Rural Payments Agency was only set up in November 2006, a fact that is reflected in the figures. Figures for earlier years are not held in a form that is readily accessible and consequently, could be obtained only at disproportionate cost. The figures quoted include both the costs of employing both permanent staff and contractor/consultancy staff over the respective periods. 6 The new Food and Environment Research Agency, which was created on 1 April 2009, does not specifically employ press or communications officers. Instead they route all of the press queries that they receive through the Core-DEFRA press office.
(b) Details of the spend on salaries for press/communications officers in DEFRA’s NDPBs:
This information is not held centrally and could be provided only at disproportionate cost.