Asked by: Lord Walney (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, on how many occasions his Department has made appointments by exception since 2010; and who was appointed for each such post.
Answered by Anna Soubry
The Civil Service Commission recognises that in some circumstances it may be right to allow appointments to be made outside of the principle of selection on merit on the basis of fair and open competition. Those exceptions are designed to provide a flexible way of recruiting staff where this is necessary in the interests of the Civil Service; for example, to meet a short-term need for specialist skills.
The information requested is contained in the table below.The Ministry of Defence does not hold records of appointments by exception prior to Financial Year 2012-13. For data protection purposes, name of individuals appointed to roles cannot be disclosed.
Financial Year | No. of appointments made by exception |
2012-13 | 134 |
2013-14 | 169 |
2014-15 (to 31 October) | 95 |
Asked by: Lord Walney (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, how many Instant Rewards of what value were given to his Department's officials in (a) 2013 and (b) 2014 to date.
Answered by Anna Soubry
The Ministry of Defence operates a Minor Award Scheme, which recognises performance over and above that is normally required in a specific task. The table below shows the number of awards and their total value for Financial Years (FY) 2012-13 and 2013-14. The information is not held by calendar year.
Year | FY 2012-13 | Total Value | FY 2013-14 | Total Value |
Number of Awards | 5,348 | £344,471.14 | 3,701 | £284,272.43 |
The number of awards does not equate to the number of officials who received them; awards can be made to individuals or teams of individuals.
Asked by: Lord Walney (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, on how many occasions his Department has had requests for appointments by exception to the Senior Civil Service turned down by the Civil Service Commission since 2010; and who was appointed for each such post.
Answered by Anna Soubry
I refer the hon. Member to the Answer my right hon. Friend the Minister of State for the Cabinet Office (Francis Maude) gave him on 10 November 2014, to Question UIN 213040. | |||||||
Asked by: Lord Walney (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, how many Freedom of Information requests his Department has declined to answer in full since 2010.
Answered by Anna Soubry
The Ministry of Justice (MOJ) publishes a quarterly statistics bulletin recording Freedom of Information responses from all Government Departments, including the Ministry of Defence. The bulletin includes tables showing how many requests were granted in full, or resulted in some or all information being withheld. The MOJ statistics bulletin can be found at: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/government-foi-statistics
Asked by: Lord Walney (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, how much his Department has spent on legal fees over prevention of release of information requested by Freedom of Information requests since 2010.
Answered by Anna Soubry
I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave him on 1 September 2014, (Official Report, column 95W). Since that answer, the Ministry of Defence (MOD) has spent a further £17,470.52 in 2013-14, bringing the total in that financial year to £66,319.58. In the current financial year, to date the MOD has spent £14,471.00.
Asked by: Lord Walney (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, how much his Department spent on iPhones in each year since 2010.
Answered by Philip Dunne
The majority of mobile telephones supplied to the Ministry of Defence (MOD) are provided by Vodafone through an enabling arrangement through the Defence Fixed Telecommunications Service (DFTS) contract with BT. A very small number (less than 1%) of mobile telephones are procured outside this arrangement to meet local operational demands, typically at MOD establishments overseas. Until July 2014, the procurement of iPhones required purchase authorisation outside the scope of the DFTS catalogue but, since then, iPhones have been ordered by routine processes via the DFTS catalogue. Monthly network access charges for iPhones are greater than basic mobile telephones. Expenditure on iPhone accounts via the DFTS contract is in the attached table.
It should be noted that iPhones purchased prior to Jan 2010 continue to incur network access charges in the reporting period. The current cost differential is £5 for a basic mobile phone per month and £11.23 for an iPhone.
The annual expenditure on iPhone purchases and network acccess charges via the DFTS contract since January 2010 to October 2014 are shown in the attached table:
Asked by: Lord Walney (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, how much his Department spent on legal fees in cases relating to the release of information requested under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 in each of the last five years.
Answered by Anna Soubry
The Ministry of Defence engages the Treasury Solicitor to provide legal advice and advice counsel in cases that have been appealed to the Information Tribunal under the Freedom of Information Act.
Departmental spend for this work is detailed in the following table:
Financial Year | 2013-14 | 2012-13 | 2011-12 | 2010-11 |
Total Costs | £48,849.06 | £11,524.17 | £108,825.94 | £49,450.45 |
Number of Appeals | 6 | 9 | 12 | 5 |
Figures for earlier years are not readily available. Figures provided are for the number of appeals for which MOD was billed in each financial year.
Asked by: Lord Walney (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, how many senior civil servants appointed to positions in his Department since 2010 were previously (a) political appointees within that Department and (b) employed by a political party.
Answered by Julian Brazier
This information could only be provided at disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Lord Walney (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, on what occasions each Minister within his Department has taken domestic flights on official business since May 2010.
Answered by Julian Brazier
This information could be provided only at disproportionate cost.
Details of all Ministerial overseas travel is published on a quarterly basis.
Asked by: Lord Walney (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what professional development courses are made available to staff of his Department; and what the cost to the public purse is of each such course.
Answered by Anna Soubry
The Defence Academy provides professional skills and knowledge courses to Defence personnel. The Defence Academy 2014 course prospectus can be found on the Academy's website (www.da.mod.uk). A copy of that report and the 2012-13 Training and Education Statistical Analysis have been placed in the Library of the House.
The cost of providing each individual course is not available and could only be provided at disproportionate cost. The Defence Academy total operating costs in FY 2013-14 was £130.617 million.