To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many employees in (a) his Department and (b) each of its agencies are in transition prior to being managed out; how long on average the transition window between notification and exit has been in (i) his Department and (ii) each of its agencies in each of the last five years; what estimate he has made of the salary costs of staff in transition in each such year; and what proportion of employees in transition were classed as being so for more than six months in each year. (313240)

The Department does not formally have staff in transition. Where staff are displaced from their current post, their redeployment is managed through a priority posting pool. On 1 January 2010 there were 13 displaced staff in the pool. This number includes displaced staff across all grades.

The Department does not record information about how long each individual remains in the pool, but most do secure a permanent post within six months.

Over the last five years, a small number of staff have left the Department under compulsory redundancy terms, following a period of redeployment. These are shown in the following table:

The core Department's records do not show how long each of these staff were displaced before leaving the Department.

The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) reports that no staff were “in transition” over the last five years.

The NHS Purchasing and Supply Agency (PASA) has been subject to a significant change programme as the functions of the agency are in the process of being transferred to other organisations. The closure of PASA is being effected over the 2009-10 financial year. No other data is available from PASA for the previous five years. In 2009-10 to date the number of staff initially placed at risk, was 236. Of these 108 were made compulsorily redundant the remainder have been redeployed or are currently being redeployed. Average period between notification and exit of those PASA staff was four months. The total salary costs of PASA staff in transition was £14,998,475 and the overall proportion of employees in transition for more than six months was 22 per cent.