Asked by: Wayne David (Labour - Caerphilly)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, whether he will be depositing all records relating to the 1994 Chinok helicopter crash in the National Archives at Kew.
Answered by Tobias Ellwood
All important records relating to the 1994 Chinook helicopter crash at the Mull of Kintyre will be selected for permanent preservation. Records selected for permanent preservation are ultimately transferred to The National Archives.
Asked by: Wayne David (Labour - Caerphilly)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, how many vacant civilian staff full-time equivalent posts Defence Equipment and Support has backfilled with contractors or contingent labour in each of the last three years; and what the cost to the public purse was of those arrangements.
Answered by Stuart Andrew - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
Contingent labour is only used for instances where Defence Equipment and Support (DE&S) does not have the specialist skills it needs in-house, or for urgent requirements where normal recruitment activities would not fill the post in time with a civilian or military employee.
The cost and average number of contingent labour personnel used by DE&S in each of the last three financial years is shown in the table below.
Year | 2017-18 | 2016-17 | 2015-16 |
Cost (£ million) | 27.8 | 42.6 | 27.1 |
Average number (Full time equivalent) | 254 | 358 | 292 |
Asked by: Wayne David (Labour - Caerphilly)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what length of time is allocated to Ministry of Defence civilian staff for decompression adjustment following deployment in conflict zones.
Answered by Tobias Ellwood
The 24-hour Third Location Decompression (TLD) package exists to allow Service personnel and Ministry of Defence (MOD) Civilians returning from operational theatres the opportunity to re-adjust to routine work and family life. Not all personnel returning from operations will be required to undertake the TLD package; the assessment is based on the levels of risk and rigour to which deployed personnel have been exposed. There are no current operations where decompression is required, but this judgement is kept under regular review and Commanding Officers and managers may propose special action where the experience of an individual or unit is deemed to merit this. Service personnel and MOD Civilians on operational deployments which are not exposed to high intensity combat engagement or significant compressing factors will receive a series of briefings in Theatre within their final week prior to departure. The aim is to encourage a period of reflection, to engage if Trauma Risk Management intervention has been required, and to brief on some of the challenges that may confront an individual returning to a normal work and home pattern of life.
Asked by: Wayne David (Labour - Caerphilly)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, how many vacant civilian staff full-time equivalent posts Defence Equipment and Support has had in each of the last three years.
Answered by Stuart Andrew - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
Defence Equipment and Support now operates a balanced matrix approach to the deployment of personnel, which means that people will frequently move to different assignments based on prioritisation of customer needs. Consolidated information on the number of vacancies in the organisation is therefore not held.
Asked by: Wayne David (Labour - Caerphilly)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what the average salary increase was for each grade Defence Equipment and Support employee in 2016.
Answered by Stuart Andrew - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
In 2016, the average salary increase across all grades of Defence Equipment and Support (DE&S) employees was 1.35%. Given the changes to the DE&S pay arrangements since this period, a more detailed breakdown of this increase would require significant manual analysis of historical records and, as such, an analysis by grade could be provided only at disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Wayne David (Labour - Caerphilly)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, how many and what proportion of Defence Equipment and Support apprentices left that organisation before completing their apprenticeships in each of the last three years.
Answered by Stuart Andrew - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
Information on the number of Defence Equipment and Support apprentices who left the organisation before completing their apprenticeships since 2015 is in the tables below.
Engineering
| 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 |
Intake | 64 | 84 | 101 | 83 |
Completed | 54 | 70 | 92 | 81 |
Percentage | 84.4% | 83.4% | 92.1% | 97.6% |
Left organisation before completion | 10 | 14 | 9 | 2 |
Percentage | 15.6% | 16.6% | 8.9% | 2.4% |
Project professionals
| 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 |
Intake | - | 11 | 26 | N/A |
Completed | - | 9 | 22 | N/A |
Percentage | - | 81.9% | 84.6% | N/A |
Left organisation before completion | - | 2 | 4 | N/A |
Percentage | - | 18.1% | 15.4% | N/A |
Finance
| 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 |
Intake | 10 | 30 | 11 | N/A |
Completed | 8 | 24 | 9 | N/A |
Percentage | 80% | 80% | 81.9% | N/A |
Left organisation before completion | 2 | 6 | 2 | N/A |
Percentage | 20% | 20% | 18.1% | N/A |
Asked by: Wayne David (Labour - Caerphilly)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, how much his Department paid to PwC for its work on a new staff pay and grading structure and performance management system for Defence Equipment and Support.
Answered by Stuart Andrew - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
Between 2014 and 2018, as a managed service provider, PwC supported Defence Equipment and Support in developing a new people model, introducing matrix management, implementing new people policies, and developing a pay, grading and performance management system. PwC was paid £43 million to complete this work.
Asked by: Wayne David (Labour - Caerphilly)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, how many transactions worth more than £1 million Defence Equipment and Support has made since August 2018.
Answered by Stuart Andrew - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
Details of all Ministry of Defence payments over £25,000 are published on gov.uk as part of the Government's Transparency Agenda. This can be found at the following link:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/mod-spending-over-25000-january-to-december-2018. The data includes payments made by Defence Equipment and Support.
Asked by: Wayne David (Labour - Caerphilly)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, whether his Department has made an assessment of the effect of the new performance management system in Defence Equipment and Support on the provision of support to the armed forces.
Answered by Stuart Andrew - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
The priority for Defence Equipment and Support (DE&S) is the safe provision of world-class procurement and support to the Armed Forces. The DE&S performance management system, which is designed to enable the organisation to recruit and retain the specialist skills it needs, is just one element that contributes to delivery performance. This performance is measured through an integrated set of key performance indicators (KPI), progress against which is published in the DE&S Annual Report and Accounts. KPI 1 reflects delivery performance to the Armed Forces, and this shows that DE&S continues to achieve or exceed its targets.
Asked by: Wayne David (Labour - Caerphilly)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what plans his Department has to sign further Prosperity Framework agreements.
Answered by Stuart Andrew - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
No further Prosperity Framework agreements are planned at this stage. However, we are open to signing further agreements where these offer the potential to grow a company's UK footprint, create new opportunities for UK suppliers and deliver benefits for wider UK prosperity.