Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many and what proportion of staff employed by his Department are employed on a contract which is (a) full-time permanent, (b) part-time permanent, (c) for less than two years' duration, (d) on an agency basis and (e) zero-hours.

As at March 2017 the Department of Work and Pensions had:

a) 50,035 members of staff employed on full-time permanent contracts

b) 31,875 members of staff employed on part-time permanent contracts

c) 1,661 members of staff employed on Fixed Term appointment contracts of less than 2 years duration

d) the number of staff employed on an agency Contingent Labour basis to cover specific service delivery activities where there is no DWP internal resource are forecast on a monthly basis and clarified retrospectively each quarter. The forecast for March 2017 was 518.

e) No staff are employed on zero hours contracts