Asked by: Florence Eshalomi (Labour (Co-op) - Vauxhall and Camberwell Green)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether she plans to introduce a voluntary exit programme for civil servants serving in his Department.
Answered by Mark Spencer
Defra currently has no live voluntary exit schemes. Voluntary exit schemes are a commonly used workforce management process available to departments based on their specific workforce needs.
Asked by: Florence Eshalomi (Labour (Co-op) - Vauxhall and Camberwell Green)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how much her Department spent on external recruitment consultants in 2021.
Answered by Mark Spencer
The Defra SCS recruitment spend (Executive Search) for calendar year 2021 was £43,275.
Asked by: Florence Eshalomi (Labour (Co-op) - Vauxhall and Camberwell Green)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, if they will publish the payments made to officials in their Department for relocation to government offices outside London in 2021.
Answered by Mark Spencer
No relocation expenses have been incurred in 2021/22. Defra's Places for Growth approach is for new roles to be based outside of London rather than through compulsory relocation. Staff are free to relocate outside of London to one of our alternative locations, but this is on a voluntary basis.
Asked by: Florence Eshalomi (Labour (Co-op) - Vauxhall and Camberwell Green)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps his Department is taking to help ensure that there is an adequate supply of water during the prolonged heatwave.
Answered by Steve Double
Water companies have a statutory duty to provide a secure supply of wholesome water at all times. Water companies are legally required to have robust plans in place to maintain the supply of water in a range of hazards, including heatwaves.
Water companies use a range of measures to manage higher water demand expected during heatwaves and respond to any disruption. These measures include ensuring their networks are prepared, customer communications to help manage demand, re-routing of water via their networks, and the provision of alternative water supplies, for example via tanker deliveries. In the event of disruptions, water companies also maintain priority access registers, which vulnerable customers can register with for provision of bottled water.
The Government is communicating frequently with water companies to monitor their performance and re-iterate the importance of maintaining supplies to customers during the heatwave.
Asked by: Florence Eshalomi (Labour (Co-op) - Vauxhall and Camberwell Green)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether he or any of the Ministers in his Department use personal email addresses to conduct Government business.
Answered by Baroness Prentis of Banbury
Ministers will use a range of digital forms of communication for discussions in line with relevant guidance on information handling and security.
Ministers will have informal conversations from time to time, in person or remotely, and significant content relating to government business from such discussions is passed back to officials.
The Cabinet Office has previously published guidance on how information is held for the purposes of access to information, and how formal decisions are recorded for the official record. Ministers are also given advice on the security of electronic communications.
Asked by: Florence Eshalomi (Labour (Co-op) - Vauxhall and Camberwell Green)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether his Department operates a red, amber and green rating system for categorising Freedom of Information requests according to their presentational sensitivity.
Answered by Baroness Prentis of Banbury
No. All FOI requests are treated in exactly the same way.