Asked by: Jon Trickett (Labour - Normanton and Hemsworth)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, 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 Alan Mak
A - Agency workers:
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. This framework can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/contingent-labour-spend-control
Commentary on Contingent Labour usage, if applicable, is available in departmental annual reports: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/annual-reports-and-accounts-for-central-government-departments
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, which provides a managed service for departmental use including low supplier margins, regular pay rate benchmarking, comprehensive tracking and reporting of contingent labour assignments, full time sheeting and approvals technology and onboarding, contracting and payroll services.
RM6160 - Non Clinical Temporary and Fixed Term Staff https://www.crowncommercial.gov.uk/agreements/RM6160, which 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.
HM Treasury has spent the following on agency workers:
Year | Value (£) |
2020 | 783,224 |
2021 | 1,029,471 |
2022 (up to June) | 289,177 |
B - Agency retainer fees:
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.
HM Treasury has spent the following on agency retainer fees:
Year | Value (£) |
2020 | 6,300 |
2021 | 117,038 |
2022 | 165,851 |
The vast majority of HM Treasury’s agency retainer fees relate to the setup of the UK Infrastructure Bank.
Asked by: Jon Trickett (Labour - Normanton and Hemsworth)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, 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 Alan Mak
The air travel spend for HMT in each calendar year respectively is as follows: 2020: £343,886.61, 2021: £126,748.95 and 2022: £332,222.72. We are unable to provide the split between Ministers and Officials as the information is not held in that format in our systems.
However, Ministers international commercial air travel is captured in departmental quarterly transparency returns and published on gov.uk at the following location: Transparency data HMT ministers' meetings, hospitality, gifts and overseas travel: 1 April to 30 June 2021 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).
Asked by: Jon Trickett (Labour - Normanton and Hemsworth)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, how much their Department has spent on advertising in (a) 2020, (b) 2021 and (c) 2022.
Answered by Alan Mak
HM Treasury spent the following on advertising over the last 4 financial years:
Financial Year | Cost |
2019-20 | £114,864 |
2020-21 | £327,838 |
2021-22 | £134,774 |
2022-23 (up to June 22) | £51,901 |
Asked by: Jon Trickett (Labour - Normanton and Hemsworth)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, 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 Alan Mak
HM Treasury’s spend on consultancy is published and available for viewing within the Annual Report and Accounts. HMT is yet to lay its accounts for 2021-22, but these are due to be published prior to the summer recess. We have included the links to the published Annual Report and Accounts for each of the available years in question within the table below. The names of all contracts issued for consultancy can be found using the Gov.Uk contracts finder (link included below).
Contract Finder - Contracts Finder - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
Financial Year | Publication Link | Page Reference |
2019-20 | https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/hm-treasury-annual-report-and-accounts-2019-to-2020 | Page 104 |
2020-21 | https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/hm-treasury-annual-report-and-accounts-2020-to-2021 | Page 101 |
Asked by: Jon Trickett (Labour - Normanton and Hemsworth)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, how much their Department and its associated agencies spent on legal disputes in (a) 2020, (b) 2021 and (c) 2022.
Answered by Alan Mak
HMT receives its legal services from the Government Legal Department (GLD) and external contractors. We do not disaggregate the costs of disputes as opposed to other legal advice. The amount we pay for the GLD is shown in the table below, and legal expenses for external consultants can be found here as part of HMT’s transparency reporting with links shown below.
Contract finder - Contracts Finder - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
Over £25k transparency reporting - HM Treasury spend over £25,000 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
Calendar Year | Total GLD Expenditure |
2020 | £9,244,162 |
2021 | £10,073,235 |
2022 (Jan-May) | £2,531,686 |
Asked by: Jon Trickett (Labour - Normanton and Hemsworth)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, 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 Alan Mak
HM Treasury is committed to maintaining transparency about its procurement activity and publishes information about its contracts with a value of over £10,000 on the “Contracts Finder” website.
Asked by: Jon Trickett (Labour - Normanton and Hemsworth)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, 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 Alan Mak
The Government is committed to maintaining transparency about its procurement activity and publishes information about its contracts with a value of over £10,000 on the “Contracts Finder” website.
Contracts that are due to be agreed can be found on the HMT Commercial Pipeline. The next version of this is due be published at the end of July 2022.
The amount spent on monitoring each contract and the number of officials working on that monitoring each year since 2010 is information that is not held centrally and can only be provided at a disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Jon Trickett (Labour - Normanton and Hemsworth)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, 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 Simon Clarke
The Annual Report and Accounts further details senior staff salaries - https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1004021/HMT_ARA__web_.pdf
Asked by: Jon Trickett (Labour - Normanton and Hemsworth)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, how much his Department spent on hospitality in (a) 2020, (b) 2021 and (c) 2022.
Answered by Simon Clarke
HM Treasury spend on hospitality for the calendar years are below
Year | Spend (£) |
2020 | £340,317.83 |
2021 | £39,128.81 |
2022 *(Jan-May) | £192,180.81 |
Asked by: Jon Trickett (Labour - Normanton and Hemsworth)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what steps the Government is taking to ensure that customers of Safe Hand Funeral Plans are (a) compensated and (b) transferred to new funeral plans from approved funeral providers.
Answered by John Glen
In January 2021, the government legislated to bring all pre-paid funeral plan providers and intermediaries within the regulatory remit of the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) from 29 July 2022. This will ensure that, for the first time, consumers are protected by compulsory and robust regulation. To address broader risks posed by providers not obtaining authorisation, on 21 April the government made a supplementary statutory instrument which will make it easier for regulated funeral plan providers to take on the customers of providers that are exiting the market. This will protect consumers – particularly during the transition to regulation – by ensuring that more funeral plan holders benefit from continued plan coverage.
Safe Hands Plans went into administration in March 2022. The government understands that this will be concerning for customers of Safe Hands and continues to monitor the implementation of regulation in this sector closely.
Dignity’s recent commitment to provide ongoing support to Safe Hands’ customers until November 2022 is welcome. This will ensure that any planholders who pass away during this time will receive a funeral without any additional charge.
While the FCA does not yet regulate funeral plan providers, it is supporting the administrators and the wider industry as they look to find a longer-term solution for Safe Hands’ customers.
It is unfortunate but unavoidable that bringing a previously unregulated sector into regulation – whatever form that may take – creates a possibility that some providers are not able to meet the threshold for authorisation. However, a well-regulated market should promote effective competition and drive better outcomes for consumers in the long-term.
Where a provider is unable to obtain FCA authorisation because of underlying issues, it is important to understand that this is not an issue created by bringing the sector into regulation. Rather, bringing the sector into regulation exposes these unsustainable business models and prevents these problems from getting worse.