Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, how many recruitment and employment agencies his Department has used to source staff in each year since 2010-11.

The Civil Service-wide Recruitment Freeze was introduced in May 2010, which limits new appointments to front-line and business critical roles only, this usually means specialist roles.

The number of recruitment and employment agencies we have used for external recruitment in the UK from financial year 2010-11 onwards is:

2010/11 2011/12 2012/13 2013/14 2014/15

7 4 8 6 2

Recruitment agencies are used to recruit for positions that require specialist skills and expertise not available elsewhere in the organisation.

The FCO also has a separate contract in place with Hays Specialist Recruitment for the provision of temporary staff for essential frontline roles whilst internal recruitment processes take place.