Question

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, how many civil servants in his Department are members of trades unions; how much working hours facility time is claimed by each such civil servant; and what the cost of that facility time is to his Department.

The Department does not hold information on how many civil servants are members of Trade Unions. The Cabinet Office publishes data relating to Civil Service facility time on a quarterly basis. The latest data is Quarter 4, 2014 at and is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/trade-union-facility-time.

The Department collects this information on a quarterly basis. The last period for which we have data is Quarter 2 of 2015, 1 April – 30 June 2015. During this period, the 33 TU reps claimed a total of 913 hours of facility time at a cost of £18,933.