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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what data her Department holds on the amount of time taken to inform candidates applying for jobs at the Environment Agency of the outcome of their application and whether they have been called for interview in each of the last five years.

The average time taken to inform candidates of the outcome of their application to a job advertised at the Environment Agency for each of the past full five calendar years is shown in the table below.

The data is for the period between the advert close date and the date the applicant was notified of the outcome of their application. The outcome of the application is either for the applicant to be invited to interview or for them to be informed that they have not been invited to interview