Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how many marine surveyors were recruited by the Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA) in (a) 2015-16, (b) 2016-17 and (c) 2017-18; and what the total number of UK-based MCA marine surveyors was in each of those years.

The MCA recruited 12 Marine Office Surveyors in 2015/16 and 18 in 2016/17. External recruitment campaigns were paused in January 2017 as part of a restructuring exercise.

Following this, an external campaign offering new terms and conditions and remuneration started in autumn 2017. This attracted over 300 applicants with 30 candidates successfully passing the assessments and offered posts across the Marine Office network. Of these, seven chose to remain on a merit list (no posts available in their preferred location) and one joined Ensign (the MCA’s Large Yacht Unit). The remaining 22 candidates are going through the checks, and health and fitness assessments. Three have started, all the remaining candidates are expected to have joined the MCA by summer 2018.

The next round of external recruitment has already started.