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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many staff were employed in his Department on (a) 20 December 2018 and (b) 23 June 2016.

The total number of staff employed by Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs on 31 May 2016, 30 June 2016 and 30 November 2018 are shown below;

Staff in Post Data is only run as at the end of each month in order to provide information for published statutory returns. The data provided is in line with the figures published at Data.gov.uk - https://data.gov.uk/dataset/workforce-management-information-defra.

Along with other public sector employers, the department provides data to the Office of National statistics for the “Quarterly Public Sector Employment Survey”. The most recent publication was 11 December showing data as at the end of September 2018 and can be found here - https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/publicsectorpersonnel/bulletins/publicsectoremployment/september2018 .

ONS data for earlier reference dates can be found here – https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/publicsectorpersonnel/bulletins/publicsectoremployment/previousReleases

The Staff in Post data has to go through a lengthy resource intensive verification process to eliminate a high proportion of errors. To provide data as at 20 December would incur disproportionate costs.