PARLIAMENTARY WRITTEN QUESTION
Staff (9 December 2014)

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how much his Department has spent on (a) consultants, (b) temporary staff and (c) contingent labour in each of the last five years; how many people have been so employed; what the length of contract of each such person was; and what equivalent civil service salary band each was on.

Asked by:
Lucy Powell (Labour)

For each of the last five financial years 2009-10 to 2013-14, the overall amount of money spent by the Department of Health (DH) on consultants and contingent labour/ temporary agency staff is included in the tables below. Figures are from the Department of Health Annual report and Accounts.

Table 1: Total Core DH Consultancy spend by financial year
	Cash (£ million)					Resource (£ million)
	2009-10	2010-11	2011-12	2012-13	*2013-14	2013-14
Core Department	£108.3	£9.797	£2.920	£5.472	£4.985	£0.588
Connecting for Health	£6.3	£4.975	£11.997	£12.927	N/A	N/A

Table 2: Total Core DH Contingent Labour/Temporary/Agency worker spend by financial year
Resource (£ million)
	2009-10	2010-11	2011-12	2012-13	2013-14
Core Department	£88.942	£89.614	£36.886	£44.049	£39.991
Connecting for Health	£129.415	£62.160	£34.078	£12.927	N/A

*Changes to core DH consultancy spend reporting from 2013-14 will now be based on the newly stated DH resource accruals position- which is £588,000. This is no longer comparable or on a like-for like basis against all former reported purchase orders in line with Crown Commercial Services (CCS) definitions in previous years 2009-10 to 2012-13 i.e the figures for the previous years in the table. We will however, continue to capture and report on CCS definitional spend (currently £4.985 million) as part of the DH family Workforce Management Information notification required to Cabinet Office and this is the like for like comparison figures for the previous years in the table.

Notes:

1. Figures for Contingent labour/Temporary Agency values are on a resource basis and are consistent with published accounts.

2. 2013-14 Connecting for Health spend is no longer reported as part of core DH reporting.

The Department does not directly employ consultants or contingent labour/temporary agency staff. It contracts for the delivery of consultancy and contingent labour services. Information on consultants and temporary staff numbers in the Department is however, published in the monthly “Information on the workforce of the Department of Health (DH) and its agencies” and is available on the .Gov website.

The Department‘s Business Management System may hold data on consultancy, contingent labour, and agency staff costs where it is stored centrally for a specific budget approval period. To work out contract length details and equivalent civil service pay rates for all years requested would incur disproportionate cost.

Answered by:
Dr Dan Poulter (Labour)
16 December 2014