Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty's Government how many civil servants at the Department of Health and Social Care support the work of the Joint Committee on Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI); which teams those staff are in; who they are managed by; and how they filter information they provide to the JCVI.

The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) is supported by 4.5 full time positions as secretariat to the committee. The secretariat are based in the Immunisation Division in the National Infection Service of Public Health England (PHE) and managed by the Head of Immunisation in PHE.

The secretariat gathers information from a range of sources, including from academic research, PHE and from industry sources. Decisions on information to be shared with the JCVI are made by the secretariat in consultation with consultant epidemiologists, the Head of Immunisation and the Chair of the Committee. Members may also share information with the secretariat or the JCVI. The secretariat are educated to degree level or higher in biological sciences disciplines and are supported by the Head of Immunisation in PHE and a number of consultant epidemiologists and scientists.