Diana Johnson – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Transport

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Diana Johnson on 2015-12-17.

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how many press and public relations staff are employed by (a) the office of Rail and Road, (b) the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency, (c) the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency, (d) the Maritime and Coastguard Agency, (e) the Vehicle Certification Agency, (f) the British Transport Police Authority, (g) Directly Operated Railways limited, (h) High Speed 2 Ltd; (i) Highways England, (j) Northern Lighthouse Board, (k) Transport Focus, (l) Trinity House, (m) Civil Aviation Authority and (n) the Airports Commission; how many of those employees are paid more than (i) £50,000 and (ii) £100,000; and what the total expenditure was on press and public relations by each of those organisations in the most recent year for which figures are available.

Mr Robert Goodwill

Some of the information requested for the 14 organisations listed is not held by the Department and can only be provided at disproportionate cost.

However, the number of press and public relations staff currently employed by the Department’s executive agencies is provided in the table below. None of the press and PR staff have a full-time equivalent salary exceeding £50,000.

The total of 11.2 full-time equivalent staff compares to an equivalent figure for these four executive agencies in 2009/10 (with DVSA previously being DSA and VOSA) of 15.5 full-time equivalent staff.

Information on non-pay expenditure on press and public relations services held by the Department for the most recent financial year available is provided in the table below.

Overall communications expenditure by the Department’s executive agencies in 2014-15 (including salaries) was £19 million lower than in 2009-10. Across Government the government communications profession reduced communications spending by a total of £1 billion during the last Parliament.