Asked by: Jon Trickett (Labour - Normanton and Hemsworth)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether his Department has had recent discussions with the South Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority on public ownership of Doncaster Sheffield Airport.
Answered by Robert Courts
The Government is committed to regional airports. They are key to serving our local communities, supporting thousands of jobs in the regions, and they act as a key gateway to international opportunities. While the UK Government supports airports, it does not own or operate them.
The Minister for Aviation recognises the importance of Doncaster Sheffield Airport to the region and has made clear in meetings both with the South Yorkshire Mayor Oliver Coppard and the Peel Group the Government’s desire to see a viable aviation future for the airport. The Minister has urged Mayor Coppard to work with all parties to find a locally led solution to preserve aviation at Doncaster-Sheffield Airport.
Asked by: Jon Trickett (Labour - Normanton and Hemsworth)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how much his Department has spent on (a) agency workers and (b) agency retainer fees in (i) 2020, (ii) 2021 and (iii) 2022.
Answered by Trudy Harrison
The Department’s published figures in the Department’s Annual Report and Accounts includes the total contingent labour expenditure figures for the core Department and its Executive Agencies. These numbers are available online at https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/dft-annual-reports-and-accounts.
The table below provides the total spend on contingent labour
for DVSA, covering financial years 2019-20 and 2020-21, as these figures are not included in the total Departmental contingent labour expenditure published in the Department’s Annual Report and Accounts for those years:
Financial Year | Expenditure (£m) |
2019-20 | 0.6 |
2020-21 | 0.5 |
Agency workers (more commonly referred to as “Contingent Labour” or “Temporary Workers”) are subject to a Cabinet Office controls framework to ensure robust governance of spending in this area.
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/contingent-labour-spend-control
Commentary on Contingent Labour usage, if applicable, is available in departmental annual reports.
The Crown Commercial Service provides two frameworks specifically for the supply of Contingent Labour which are used by central government departments. These are:
RM3749 - Public Sector Resourcing. https://www.crowncommercial.gov.uk/agreements/rm3749
This provides a managed service for departmental use including low supplier margins, regular pay rate benchmarking, comprehensive tracking and reporting of contingent labour assignments, full timesheeting and approvals technology and onboarding, contracting and payroll services.
RM6160 - Non Clinical Temporary and Fixed Term Staff https://www.crowncommercial.gov.uk/agreements/RM6160
This provides access to a range of generalist, specialist and niche contingent labour agencies offering a wide range of suppliers, maximum margins, free transfer to permanent after 12 weeks and onboarding, contracting and payroll services.
Use of these frameworks provides robust governance, visibility, value for money and flexibility in meeting departmental contingent labour needs.
We have interpreted your reference to agency retainer fees as the fees charged at the commencement of the provision of a search recruitment service, this is only applicable when recruiting for a permanent or fixed term post.
Agency retainer fees are not applicable to the contingent labour market.
Asked by: Jon Trickett (Labour - Normanton and Hemsworth)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how much their Department has spent on air travel for (a) Ministers and (b) officials in (i) 2020, (ii) 2021 and (iii) 2022.
Answered by Trudy Harrison
The following table provides the total spend on air travel for the core Department, covering financial years 2019-20 to 2021-22:
Financial Year | Expenditure (£’000) |
2019-20 | 1,478 |
2020-21 | 72 |
2021-22 | 356 |
The department is unable to break down travel expense costs for officials and Ministers by mode of transport.
Asked by: Jon Trickett (Labour - Normanton and Hemsworth)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how much their Department has spent on advertising in (a) 2020, (b) 2021 and (c) 2022.
Answered by Trudy Harrison
The following table provides the total spend on advertising for the core Department, covering financial years 2019-20 to 2021-22:
Financial Year | Expenditure (£m) |
2019-20 | 14.4 |
2020-21 | 6.4 |
2021-22 | 9.8 |
Note the majority of the above spend has been incurred on the THINK! road safety campaign.
Asked by: Jon Trickett (Labour - Normanton and Hemsworth)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how much his Department has spent on consultancy fees in (a) 2020, (b) 2021 and (c) 2022; and what the name is of each consultancy contracted.
Answered by Trudy Harrison
The Department publishes information on all tenders and contracts over £10,000 and a list of the consultancy contracts can be found via the link below:
Contracts Finder - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
The Department is also fully committed to the Government’s transparency agenda and publishes details of expenditure, including consultancy spend, over £25,000 by month. This information can be found via the following link:
https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/dft-departmental-spending-over-25000
Asked by: Jon Trickett (Labour - Normanton and Hemsworth)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how much their Department and its associated agencies spent on legal disputes in (a) 2020, (b) 2021 and (c) 2022.
Answered by Trudy Harrison
DfT and it’s Executive Agencies have spent the below amounts on Litigation Costs in the last 3 calendar years. The 2022 figure covers up until 8th July 2022.
Calendar years | £ |
2020 | £5.1m |
2021 | £3.8m |
2022 (up until 8th July) | £1.9m |
Asked by: Jon Trickett (Labour - Normanton and Hemsworth)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what the total value has been of contracts held by their Department with (a) G4S, (b) Serco and (c) Capita in each year since 2020.
Answered by Trudy Harrison
The total value of contracts held since 2020 by DfTc with: -
(a)G4S £0
(b)Serco £0
(c)Capita £152,951
Asked by: Jon Trickett (Labour - Normanton and Hemsworth)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how many contracts that are worth (a) between £1 million and £3 million and (b) over £3 million their (i) Department and (ii) Department’s agencies and non-departmental public bodies (A) have agreed since 2010 and (B) are due to agree within the next 12 months; how much their Department has spent on monitoring each contract in each year since 2010; and how many officials have been working on that monitoring in each year since 2010.
Answered by Wendy Morton - Shadow Minister (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
Based on records held within our new sourcing system launched from end of 2019:
(A)From 2020 (i)DfTc have (a)awarded 83 contracts with a value between £1m and £3m, and (b)43 contracts with a value exceeding £3m.
(ii)It is likely that the information requested can only be provided at disproportionate cost as we would have to contact each of the agencies and non-departmental public bodies separately dedicating a resource(s) centrally to co-ordinate the response after identifying the relevant resource(s) within each of the agencies and non-departmental public bodies able to provide the answer; however, from the latest publication of Annual Accounts in terms of proportionality of the Department’s portfolio, the grey section (£0.386bn) of Image1 relates to size of DfTc spend in relation to the rest of its agencies and non-departmental public bodies (£41.887bn).
(B)In the next 12 months DfTc anticipate that 32 contracts shall commence with value between £1m and £3m and that 20 contracts shall commence with value over £3m. There are currently there are 732 contract managers within DfTc of which 452 have completed foundation contract management training with the remaining 280 working towards completion of the accreditation. It would cause a disproportionate cost to calculate the cost of deploying the 732 contract managers.
Asked by: Jon Trickett (Labour - Normanton and Hemsworth)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what the pay ratio was between the highest paid member of staff in his Department and the lowest in (a) 2020, (b) 2021 and (c) 2022.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson
The highest and lowest value staff remuneration is declared in the Department’s Annual Report and Accounts Remuneration Reports for 2020 and 2021. The values for 2022 will be published in the upcoming 2022 report.
Asked by: Jon Trickett (Labour - Normanton and Hemsworth)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how much his Department spent on hospitality in (a) 2020, (b) 2021 and (c) 2022.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson
The following table provides the total spend on hospitality for the core Department, covering financial years 2019-20 to 2021-22:
Financial Year | Expenditure (£’000) |
2019-20 | 26 |
2020-21 | 14 |
2021-22 | 6 |