To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport what estimate he has made of the average length of employment of staff of his Department at each Civil Service payband. (290544)

The table shows the average length of employment of DCMS staff at each civil service payband—time in grade at DCMS only, excluding previous departmental experience.

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport how many staff there were in (a) his Department’s predecessor in 1997 and (b) his Department on the latest date for which figures are available. (292059)

According to the published civil service statistics for 1997, the Department (then called the Department for National Heritage) had 1,004 full-time equivalent staff (44 industrial and 960 non industrial) and of these 666 were in executive agencies (at the time Historic Royal Palaces and the Royal Parks).

There have been some structural changes in the Department since then and the Department lost the Football Licensing Authority and Gambling Commission; and created the Government Olympic Executive (GOE) to oversee the whole Olympic programme in 2006.

Currently the number of full-time equivalent staff as of 30 September 2009 is as follows.

DCMS: 457

The Royal Parks Executive Agency: 105