Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether the Child Poverty Unit continues to exist as a separate identifiable unit since its transfer to the Department for Work and Pensions; if so, how many full-time equivalent (FTE) staff are employed in the Unit; and if not, how many FTE staff have responsibility for child poverty within the Department.

The Department for Work and Pensions is leading cross-government work to develop our forthcoming green paper on social justice. This will set out the Government’s approach to tackling child poverty and disadvantage and involves a wide range of policy and analytical staff from a number of key Departments including the Department for Education, the Department for Communities and Local Government and the Department of Health. Many of these staff work flexibly, dependant on work flows, and as a result we are unable to provide an FTE figure.