§ Mr. Frank Cookasked the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will give a breakdown of the manpower and financial resources available to the radiochemical inspectorate; and how these figures have changed annually since the inspectorate was set up.
§ Mr. WaldegraveThere are 14 radiochemical inspectors at the moment. Financial resources are made available to cover the costs incurred by the inspectorate for monitoring, travel and purchase of instruments. This cost is expected to be about £324,000 in the current financial year. Comparable figures for the period from 1979–80 are given in table 1. Before 1979–80 records were not kept in a form that allows the costs of manpower of the inspectorate to be separately identified.
Table 1 Number of radiochemical inspectors Resources £ 1982–83 14 399,000 1981–82 12 270,000 1980–81 9 204,000 1979–80 7 151,000 The reduction in cost between 1982–83 and 1983–84 has been achieved by cost saving procedures without a reduction in the monitoring by the inspectorate.