Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what the average number of days training of full-time equivalent staff employed in his Department was in each of the last three financial years.

The below figures relate to e-learning, the events delivered via Civil Service Learning and the learning days delivered by DWP Operations. It should however also be noted that additional development activity would have been undertaken which is not captured here, as well as the fact that Civil Service Learning was not created until 1^st January 2012.

The average number of days training of full-time equivalent staff employed by the Department in each of the last three financial years is as follows:

The decrease in training days after 2011/12 is partly explained by the formation of CSL in 2012, which led to a rationalisation of the number of learning events to provide better focussed high quality events more targeted to specific learning needs and organisational requirements. The establishment of a common curriculum of products for learning provision across the Civil Service through CSL reduced duplication and overlap between courses and a more blended approach led to more learning activity taking place through E learning and other interventions rather than a classroom based solution.