Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the corrected Answer of 22 January 2019 to Question 206251, how many civil servants in her Department were working part or full-time on projects in the Government Major Projects Portfolio in (a) June 2016 and (b) December 2018.

The Government Major Project’s Portfolio (GMPP) is a continually evolving portfolio of the government’s most complex and high risk projects. Direct comparisons of the GMPP across years should therefore be treated with caution. Projects join and leave the GMPP throughout the year and it is therefore likely that a simple comparison across two time points will refer to different sets of projects.

At the end of June 2016, 845 full time equivalents Civil Servant Project Delivery Professionals were working on projects in the Government Major Projects Portfolio in the Department for Work and Pensions.

At the end of December 2018, 675 full time equivalents Civil Servant Project Delivery Professionals were working on projects in the Government Major Projects Portfolio in the Department for Work and Pensions.

This data refers to public sector employees, defined as those who are directly in the employment of the Civil or Crown Service, local government or Arms’ Length Body at the relevant snapshot date, including seconded members of staff who join the team as Civil, Crown or Public servants.

The data supplied covers Project Delivery Professionals staff paid for from cost centres associated with the GMPP programmes at the dates specified. Other public sector employees will be involved in the delivery of the programmes in some capacity.