Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many staff worked in her Department's communications department in each of the last five years.

Defra Group Communications is the first single employer shared service communications team in Whitehall, working for six organisations. We have merged six geographically dispersed communications teams from the core department and Arm’s Length Bodies (ALBs) and now have a single team operating as an integrated communications function that reduces duplication, improves performance and saved money.

Alongside the core department, the team provides communications support for five of the department’s largest ALBs including the Environment Agency, Natural England, the Animal and Plant Health Agency, the Forestry Commission and the Rural Payments Agency. The teams work across all communications disciplines in support of the policy and operational priorities within each of these organisations. This includes media, planning, stakeholder engagement, digital communications and internal communications across the six parts of the Defra group.

As Defra Group Communications staff work in an agile way in multiple organisations, it is not possible to provide granular full-time equivalent figures for each part of the group, including the core department.