Asked by: Jake Berry (Conservative - Rossendale and Darwen)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what plans her Department has to include worker representation on its departmental board.
Answered by George Eustice
I refer the hon. Member to the oral statement on the Corporate Governance Green Paper of 29 November 2016, Official Report, Column 1408.
Asked by: Jake Berry (Conservative - Rossendale and Darwen)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what the percentage gap in earnings is between the highest-paid and lowest-paid full-time employee in her Department.
Answered by George Eustice
Government departments do not publish details of the salary of their highest to lowest paid employees.
The Office for National Statistics do, however, publish the salary ratio of highest to median earners for each Civil Service organisation. These ratios are published annually as part of Civil Service Statistics and can be found on the Office for National Statistics website:
Asked by: Jake Berry (Conservative - Rossendale and Darwen)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what plans her Department has to publish information on the gender pay gap among its employees.
Answered by George Eustice
Our Department has reported mean and median gender pay gap data since 2008 as part of the annual release of Civil Service Statistics by the Office for National Statistics.
The latest gender pay gap data (published in October earlier this year) can be found on the Office for National Statistics website:
In October 2015, the Prime Minister announced that new gender pay gap reporting measures being introduced across the private and voluntary sector from April 2017 would be extended to also apply across the public sector. We are actively working to ensure the gender pay gap data we report in future fully mirrors these new requirements.
Asked by: Jake Berry (Conservative - Rossendale and Darwen)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what the percentage gap in earnings is between the pay of full-time staff in the highest pay grade in her Department and average full-time pay in that Department.
Answered by George Eustice
The Office for National Statistics publish the salary ratio of highest to median earners for each Civil Service organisation. These ratios are published annually as part of Civil Service Statistics and can be found on the Office for National Statistics website:
Asked by: Jake Berry (Conservative - Rossendale and Darwen)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many (a) full-time staff, (b) part-time staff, (c) agency staff and (d) apprentices the Rural Payments Agency employs to process Basic Payment Scheme applications.
Answered by George Eustice
The Rural Payments Agency (RPA) uses a flexible resourcing approach, moving people onto different activities according to business need. Whilst the number of people deployed to processing Basic Payment Scheme applications will change depending on the activities being carried out, current numbers (as at 10 July) are as follows: (a) approximately 200 full time RPA employees (b) approximately 100 part time RPA employees (c) approximately 20 agency temps, and (d) approximately 50 apprentices from the cross-government Operational Delivery Profession.
Asked by: Jake Berry (Conservative - Rossendale and Darwen)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many requests for assistance with applications to the Basic Payment Scheme are outstanding.
Answered by George Eustice
There are no outstanding requests for assistance with applications. During the application window the Rural Payments Agency offered an unprecedented level of support to farmers and landowners to ensure that they were able to submit their applications.
Asked by: Jake Berry (Conservative - Rossendale and Darwen)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many applications to the Basic Payment Scheme have been approved to date.
Answered by George Eustice
As of the 8th July we have received 88,125 Basic Payments Scheme (BPS) applications. These will need to be validated and verified over the next few months.
Asked by: Jake Berry (Conservative - Rossendale and Darwen)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many applications for the Basic Payment Scheme were received (a) before and (b) after the 15 June 2015 deadline.
Answered by George Eustice
Subject to ongoing reconciliation work, as of the 8th July, we received (a) 87,267 BPS Applications prior to the 15th June, and (b) 858 after the 15th June.
All claims will need to be validated and verified over the next few months and the Rural Payments Agency has said it will be making full payments as early as possible in the payment window, which runs from December 2015 to June 2016.