Question to the Ministry of Justice:

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

Since April 2010 we have cut our overall spend on temporary staff by £35.5m. We only use temporary staff to fill business-critical posts and essential frontline services where they can provide a fast, flexible and efficient way to obtain necessary skills that are not currently available in-house. The Ministry of Justice is committed to rationalising its supplier base and we will continue to examine our use of contractors and look for further reductions.

In responding to the question above the number of suppliers is detailed as follows: