Asked by: Lucy Powell (Labour (Co-op) - Manchester Central)
Question to the Attorney General:
To ask the Attorney General, how the Government complies with Article 16 of the International Law Commission's Articles on the Responsibility of States for Internationally Unlawful Acts, with specific reference to the sharing of intelligence to identify targets with our coalition partners.
Answered by Jeremy Wright
Whilst the International Law Commission’s Articles on the Responsibility of States for Internationally Unlawful Acts have not been adopted as a treaty, the Government considers that Article 16 generally reflects customary international law. The Government is committed to upholding international law and when cooperating with other States the Government will always seek to ensure that its actions remain lawful at all times. The Government does not comment on specific matters concerning the sharing of intelligence.
Asked by: Lucy Powell (Labour (Co-op) - Manchester Central)
Question to the Attorney General:
To ask the Attorney General, how many non-executive directors of the Law Officers' Departments who were in post before May 2015 have since left the Department's board; what the names and length of tenure of such directors were; and how many and what non-executive director appointments he has made since May 2010.
Answered by Robert Buckland
No non-executive directors of the Law Officers’ Departments have left their post since May 2015. The non-executive directors who have been appointed since 2010 are detailed in the following table.
Department | Appointments made since May 2010 |
Crown Prosecution Service | Alan Jenkins, Derek Manuel, Alison Porter, Jeremy Newman, Caroline Johnstone** and Richard Szadziewski**. |
Serious Fraud Office | Simon Duckworth, Tony Osbaldiston, Norman Pickavance and Ruth Evans. |
Government Legal Department * | Celia Carlisle, Jeremy Newman and Oonagh Harper. |
* Previously the Treasury Solicitor’s Department.
** Caroline Johnstone and Richard Szadziewski were both recruited in August 2009 and had their contracts extended in 2012.
Details on non-executive directors in the Law Officers’ Departments are routinely published in respective departmental Annual Reports and Accounts.
Asked by: Lucy Powell (Labour (Co-op) - Manchester Central)
Question to the Attorney General:
To ask the Attorney General, how many non-executive directors of his Department who were in post before May 2015 have since left the Department's board; what the names and length of tenure of such directors were; and how many and what non-executive director appointments he has made since May 2010.
Answered by Robert Buckland
No non-executive directors of the Law Officers’ Departments have left their post since May 2015. The non-executive directors who have been appointed since 2010 are detailed in the following table.
Department | Appointments made since May 2010 |
Crown Prosecution Service | Alan Jenkins, Derek Manuel, Alison Porter, Jeremy Newman, Caroline Johnstone** and Richard Szadziewski**. |
Serious Fraud Office | Simon Duckworth, Tony Osbaldiston, Norman Pickavance and Ruth Evans. |
Government Legal Department * | Celia Carlisle, Jeremy Newman and Oonagh Harper. |
* Previously the Treasury Solicitor’s Department.
** Caroline Johnstone and Richard Szadziewski were both recruited in August 2009 and had their contracts extended in 2012.
Details on non-executive directors in the Law Officers’ Departments are routinely published in respective departmental Annual Reports and Accounts.
Asked by: Lucy Powell (Labour (Co-op) - Manchester Central)
Question to the Attorney General:
To ask the Attorney General, how many recruitment and employment agencies the Law Officers' Departments have used to source staff in each year since 2010-11.
Answered by Robert Buckland
The table below shows the number of recruitment and employment agencies that have been recorded as being used by the Law Officers’ Departments to source both permanent and temporary staff in each complete financial year since 2010-11:
Year | Recruitment or Employment Agency
| ||
Treasury Solicitor’s Department*
| Crown Prosecution Service | Serious Fraud Office | |
2010/11 | 28 | 22 | 5 |
2011/12 | 26 | 13 | 6 |
2012/13 | 17 | 5 | 4 |
2013/14 | 17 | 6 | 6 |
* TSol data also covers the Attorney General’s Office and HM Crown Prosecution Service Inspectorate.
Asked by: Lucy Powell (Labour (Co-op) - Manchester Central)
Question to the Attorney General:
To ask the Attorney General, how much the Law Officers' Departments has spent on (a) taxis, (b) first class train tickets and (c) business class air travel in each of the last five years.
Answered by Robert Buckland
The following tables contains details of the expenditure on taxis, first class rail travel and business class air during the last five financial years. The figures only cover expenditure recorded as being made through central framework travel contracts. In addition to this some journeys may have been paid for directly by staff and reimbursed via departmental expenses systems, however verifying such expenditure would involve reviewing all claims made over the past five years which would incur a disproportionate cost.
Recorded Taxi expenditure | |||
Year | Treasury Solicitor’s Department (1) | Attorney General’s Office (1) | Serious Fraud Office |
2009-10 | £26,209 | £3,460 | £30,164 |
2010-11 | £18,791 | £498 | £25,931 |
2011-12 | £21,067 | £218 | £14,360 |
2012-13 | £27,243 | £263 | £12,139 |
2013-14 | £29,567 | £247 | £8,628 |
(1) Additionally, the cost of other taxi journeys taken by TSol, AGO and HMCPSI staff would be reimbursed to staff via the expenses system. To identify the cost of these journeys would require a detailed exercise to review all expenses claims made over the last five years and this cannot be achieved without disproportionate cost.
CPS do not hold any central records on expenditure incurred on taxis. To calculate this would involve checking large numbers of paper records at a disproportionate cost.
Recorded First Class Rail Travel | |||||
Year | AGO | HMCPSI | TSOL | CPS | SFO |
2009-10 | £7,051 | £0 | £170,736 | £975,154 | £9,352 |
2010-11 | £746 | £0 | £27,613 | £87,334 | £22,347 |
2011-12 | £200 | £0 | £2,022 | £20,790 | £2,273 |
2012-13 | £395 | £0 | £720 | £25,241 | £868 |
2013-14 | £0 | £0 | £2,641 | £21,564 | £1,448 |
Recorded Business Class Air Travel | |||||
Year | AGO | HMCPSI | TSOL | CPS | SFO |
2009-10 | £23,690 | £2,016 | 0.00 | £29,929 | £118,834 |
2010-11 | £4,811 | £285 | £1,117 | £20,810 | £44,769 |
2011-12 | £7,793 | £0 | £8,920 | £34,794 | £34,866 |
2012-13 | £8,793 | £0 | £29,032 | £71,616 | £28,383 |
2013-14 | £14,456 | £0 | £8,822 | £39,022 | £5,463 |
Asked by: Lucy Powell (Labour (Co-op) - Manchester Central)
Question to the Attorney General:
To ask the Attorney General, what estimate he has made of the cost of (a) fraud and (b) financial error in (i) the Law Officers' Departments, (ii) its executive agencies and (iii) its non-departmental public bodies in each of the last five years.
Answered by Robert Buckland
I refer the Hon. Member to the answer to parliamentary question 217821 given to her by the Minister for the Cabinet Office on the 15th December 2014.
Asked by: Lucy Powell (Labour (Co-op) - Manchester Central)
Question to the Attorney General:
To ask the Attorney General, how much the Law Officers' Departments has spent on (a) consultants, (b) temporary staff and (c) contingent labour in each of the last five years; how many people have been so employed; what the length of contract of each such person was; and what equivalent civil service salary band each was on.
Answered by Robert Buckland
Information on recorded expenditure by the Law Officers’ Departments consultants, temporary staff and contingent labour in each of the last five financial years is contained in the following table.
Attorney General’s Office | |||
Year | Consultancy Expenditure | Temporary Staff Expenditure | Contingent services |
2013-14 | - | £1,182 | - |
2012-13 | £4,258 | - | - |
2011-12 | £4,000 | - | - |
2010-11 | - | £9,745 | - |
2009-10 | £42,479 | £54,185 | - |
Treasury Solicitor’s Department | |||
Year | Consultancy Expenditure | Temporary Staff Expenditure | Contingent services |
2013-14 | - | £9,095,385 | £296,463 |
2012-13 | £1,000 | £5,248,180 | £251,466 |
2011-12 | £29,050 | £3,585,399 | £635,299 |
2010-11 | £9,182 | £2,880,789 | £774,108 |
2009-10 | £244,531 | £6,664,899 | £827,670 |
HM Crown Prosecution Service Inspectorate | |||
Year | Consultancy Expenditure | Temporary Staff Expenditure | Contingent services |
2013-14 | £4,022 | - | £15,570 |
2012-13 | £5,481 | - | - |
2011-12 | £9,998 | £4,311 | - |
2010-11 | - | £31,530 | £20,295 |
2009-10 | £27,284 | £27,527 | - |
Serious Fraud Office | |||
Year | Consultancy Expenditure | Temporary Staff /Contingent Services Expenditure (2) | |
2013-14 | £48,000 | £3,926,000 | |
2012-13 | £31,000 | £2,672,000 | |
2011-12 | £856,000 | £2,296,000 | |
2010-11 | £1,557,000 (1) | £3,693,000 | |
2009-10 | £2,199,000 | £6,600,000 | |
Crown Prosecution Service | |||
Year | Consultancy Expenditure (3) | Temporary Staff Expenditure | Contingent services |
2013-14 | £960 | £189,624 | £273,935 |
2012-13 | £9,793 | £66,866 | £2,861 |
2011-12 | £13,347 | £257,057 | £23,355 |
2010-11 | £684,314 | £1,616,284 | £392,968 |
2009-10 | £1,881,834 | £2,464,073 | £3,293,676 |
(1) During the preparation of an answer to an earlier PQ (206676), the SFO identified that this figure is incorrectly stated in their accounts and should be £1,568k. The original figure is given here for consistency.
(2) The totals shown in this table are for contingent labour (excluding consultants). This total includes all other temporary staffing (including agency staff, interim managers and specialist contractors).
(3) CPS Expenditure for 2009/10 relates to expenditure with consultancy firms for professional services and may include payments for services not covered by the Office of Government Commerce’s Consultancy Value Programme definition.
Records are not held centrally of the number of individuals such employed during these years, the length of their contracts or their equivalent civil service salary band. To verify these details would incur a disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Lucy Powell (Labour (Co-op) - Manchester Central)
Question to the Attorney General:
To ask the Attorney General, with reference to the Prime Minister's speech of 15 August 2011 calling for a family test to be applied to all domestic policy, which policies of the Law Officers' Departments have been so assessed to date.
Answered by Robert Buckland
On 18 August 2014 the Prime Minister announced that the family test was being formalised as part of the impact assessment for all domestic policies. From October 2014, every new domestic policy will be examined for its impact on the family.
Asked by: Lucy Powell (Labour (Co-op) - Manchester Central)
Question to the Attorney General:
To ask the Attorney General, how many jobs have been transferred from the public to the private sector as a result of privatisations or outsourcing by the Law Officers' Departments since May 2010.
Answered by Oliver Heald
The Law Officers' Departments have not transferred any permanent jobs from the public to the private sector as a result of privatisations or outsourcing since May 2010.
Asked by: Lucy Powell (Labour (Co-op) - Manchester Central)
Question to the Attorney General:
To ask the Attorney General, what proportion of employees in the Law Officers' Departments of each (a) Civil Service pay grade and (b) gender work (i) reduced hours, (ii) flexi-time, (iii) from home, (iv) a compressed working week, (v) job share, (vi) term-time only and (vii) part-time.
Answered by Oliver Heald
Tables containing the information requested where available have been deposited in the Library of the House.