Questions for Written Answer: Costs

Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer
asked Her Majesty's Government:

What grade of civil servant salary they use to calculate the marginal cost of answering Questions for Written Answer; and what is the cost per hour of civil servants' time when spent answering these Questions. [HL3093]

Lord Davies of Oldham
The marginal cost of civil servants' time used to calculate the disproportionate threshold (DCT) for answering Written Parliamentary Questions (PQs) is based on a one-month sample of all Written Questions answered by those departments with the highest volume of Questions. The detailed calculations, which are carried out quinquennially, are based on actual staff time and actual average staff costs for the Civil Service grades answering the Questions in the sampled departments. The DCT is, therefore, based on an aggregate of the sample results, not on a predetermined grade or salary, and so it is not possible to provide a cost per hour.