§ Mr. Sproatasked the Secretary of State for Education and Science (1) how many full-time and part-time staff, respectively, the new Registrar of Public Lending Right will have in the first 12 months after he takes office, if he will list the salary for each person so employed; what estimate he has made of the total amount of overheads, 234W including any payments whatsoever, other than salaries there will be in the first 12 months after the registrar begins work; and where his office will be;
(2) how much the newly appointed Registrar of Public Lending Right is to be paid; and what estimate he has made of the time that will elapse between when the registrar begins his work and the first payment to an author.
§ Mr. ChannonThe registrar will be paid within the scale for a Civil Service principal—£11,000-£14,000 per annum. In the preliminary stages of his work he will probably need a secretary and no more than one or two staff. Subject to parliamentary approval of the lending right scheme, the registrar will aim if possible to make first payments to authors towards the end of the next financial year, depending on the speed at which the computer programme for recording individual loans can be implemented and the register opened for eligible authors. It is for the registrar to decide what staff his office will then need but provisional estimates allow for 15 posts, on standard Civil Service rates of pay up to HEO, at a cost in a full year of some £150,000, inclusive of overheads. The office will be in Stockton on Tees.