Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, how much his Department has spent on (a) agency workers and (b) agency retainer fees in (i) 2020, (ii) 2021 and (iii) 2022.

Agency workers (more commonly referred to as “Contingent Labour” or “Temporary Workers”) are subject to a Cabinet Office controls framework to ensure robust governance of spending in this area.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/contingent-labour-spend-control

The Department maintains a central record of overall expenditure on Contingent Labour and discloses this expenditure as part of our Annual Report and Accounts (ARAc) and for ease of reference the values reported in the financial years covering the requested years are as follows;

We have interpreted your reference to agency retainer fees as the fees charged at the commencement of the provision of a search recruitment service, this is only applicable when recruiting for a permanent or fixed term post.

Agency retainer fees are not applicable to the contingent labour market.