Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, how many staff were employed by the (a) Defence Growth Partnership and (b) UK Defence Solutions Centre on 1 April 2016.

The Defence Growth Partnership (DGP) is an industry led group, established jointly by industry and government to deliver export-led growth within the Defence sector. It does not receive any public funding. Since 2014, it has enabled joint industry and government resource equivalent to £50 million over three years to achieve its agenda: £30 million for strengthening the UK Defence & Security Organisation and establishing the UK Defence Solutions Centre (UKDSC). The remaining £20 million is currently delivered through a number of initiatives supporting the DGP’s growth agenda: establishment of the Centre of Maritime Intelligent Systems (CMIS); Dual Use Technology Exploitation (DUTE) cluster and the MOD Innovation Challenge fund.

Government and industry have committed through a mix of cash and resource equivalent to £3.8m in 2015-16 to the UKDSC and a similar figure is predicted for 2016-17. As of 1 April 2016, there were 4 staff directly employed by the UKDSC and 28 secondees from across the 16 DGP Partner Companies.