§ Sir J. Langford-Holtasked the Secretary of State for Social Services what was the total number of paid public appointments made by him in each of the last four years as recorded in the "Directory of Paid Public Appointments made by Ministers"; and what was the total cost to the public purse of these appointments in each of these years.
§ Mr. DeakinsAs no central record is at present maintained of the dates of individual appointments, numbers of actual appointments made in a particular year and the costs of those appointments could be obtained only at disproportionate expense. But my reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Cannock (Mr. Roberts) on 26th June 1978—[Vol. 852, c. 423–6]—gave a list of all paid appointments with their remuneration for which my center hon. Friend is at present responsible, a total of 2,214. A comparable list for the previous year was given in my replies to my hon. Friend the Member for West Stirlingshire (Mr. Canavan) onl9th May 1977—[Vol. 932, c.245–8]—and my hon. Friend the Member for Cannock on 24th May 1977.—[Vol. 932, c. 395–6.] That list contained a total of 2,090 appointments but, as explained in the reply of 26th June 1978, some appointments had been inadvertently omitted from that list and the true figure was 2,186. A comparison with 1976 can be obtained from the existing edition of the "Directory of Paid Public Appointments made by Ministers", which reflects the position as at 1st February 1976: the 256W comparable figure from the directory is 2,174.