§ Mr. Ralph Howellasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer, pursuant to his reply to the hon. Member for Norfolk, North dated 22 December 1982, if he will state why the estimated cost of using consultants for (a) the four-yearly total remuneration survey and (b) the intermediate survey cannot be realistically estimated at this stage.
§ Mr. HayhoeThe cost of using consultants would depend critically on the size of the job they were asked to do. This would in turn depend on such factors as the number of Civil Service and outside jobs which would need to be evaluated to provide reliable samples, the frequency with which the samples would have to be updated, and the extent to which work has to be carried out by the consultants themselves. It is not possible, at this stage, to predict the outcome of discussions on these matters.