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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how much her Department 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.

All staff employed in Core Defra who are not on the payroll are considered to be contingent labour. For reporting purposes, they are separated into consultants and temporary staff. The table below therefore only distinguishes between these two categories.

We could only obtain detailed information on the numbers of people employed in these ways in each year, and the equivalent civil service grades, at disproportionate cost as this data is not collected centrally.