Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many and what proportion of staff were promoted (a) in-grade and (b) to a higher grade in the last year broken down by (i) performance marking in the previous year and (ii) grade.

With regards to a) the in-grade promotions: We are unclear how “in-grade promotion” should be defined in relation to the data we do hold.

Information on b) promotions to a higher grade is not held centrally. In particular, the information held centrally on outward secondments and loans does not record whether the secondment/loan is a promotion or whether it would be in-grade or not.

Collation and presentation of this data could potentially require significant manual work and data linking across departments and would come at a disproportionate cost and we are, therefore, unable to provide the information requested.