To ask Her Majesty's Government how many people each regional development agency employs; and how many people work on (a) education, (b) employment, and (c) skills issues. [HL41]

The number of individuals directly paid and employed by each regional development agency as of 31 October 2009 is shown in the table below. This does not include agency or temporary workers.

Each regional development agency has a unique structure, designed to meet the specific needs of the region. This makes it difficult to draw comparisons between numbers of RDA staff working on particular issues as each agency will have different directorates, teams and job titles for roles relating to work on education, employment and skills. Often, staff activity will overlap on many issues in a way not conducive to disaggregation. For example, the primary role of RDAs is to facilitate economic growth. Therefore to some extent, all RDA staff will have some involvement in these drivers of productivity. In view of this, the table below only gives details of RDA staff who work specifically on these issues.