HC Deb 02 April 1990 vol 170 cc395-7W
Mr. Caborn

To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what functions his Department carries out at the regional level; where the regional offices are located in each of the regions; what staff are employed and at what grades; what proportion of his Department's budget is spent in each of the regions; and what geographical boundaries determine his Department's regions.

Mr. Douglas Hogg

The regional network of the Department of Trade and Industry comprises eight regional offices in England together with their sub-offices and satellites. Their main tasks are(1) To promote a better understanding of Government policies in the regions, to gather intelligence about industry and commerce, and to represent regional interests to Government. (2) To promote and administer all parts of the Enterprise Initiative. (3) To co-operate with other Government Departments, particularly through the City Action Teams, and with regional development organisations, local authorities, chambers of commerce, local enterprise agencies and other regional and local bodies.

Details of the geographical boundaries and location of

Staff by grade (including casually employed staff) as at 1 February 1990
DTI NE DTI NW DTI YH DTI EM DTI WM DTI East DTI SE DTI SW Total
Grade 3 2.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 5.0
Grade 4
Grade 5 1.0 2.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 9.0
Grade 6 4.0 4.0 3.0 3.0 3.0 2.0 5.0 3.0 27.0
Grade 7 10.0 10.0 7.0 4.0 9.0 3.0 5.0 4.0 52.0
SEO 15.0 14.0 10.0 5.0 14.0 4.0 1.0 63.0
SPTO/SSO 2.0 1.0 1.0 2.0 1.0 2.0 9.0
HEO 29.0 33.0 21.0 18.0 24.0 7.0 19.0 12.0 163.0
HPTO/HSO 1.0 1.0 3.0 1.0 2.0 1.0 9.0
I0 1.0 1.0
E0 51.0 39.0 26.0 15.0 31.0 10.0 32.0 19.0 223.0
AO 32.5 38.5 21.0 17.5 35.0 15.0 43.5 25.5 228.5
AA 25.5 28.0 19.0 9.0 27.5 3.0 13.0 5.5 130.5
TM/Typist 8.0 8.0 5.0 5.0 12.5 3.0 7.5 49.0
PS/SPS 6.0 7.0 4.0 3.0 5.0 2.0 5.0 2.0 34.0
Support staff 3.0 6.0 5.0 6.0 0.5 1.0 21.5
Total 190.0 186.5 128.0 88.5 172.0 46.0 130.0 83.5 1,024.5

In addition to its regional office structure, a number of other operations of the Department are sited, in whole or in part, in the regions. These include the inner-city task forces; provincial offices of the insolvency service; offices of the radio investigations service and the Department's financial investigations division; and a number of the

the regional offices are contained in the DTI guide for business, a copy of which can be found in the House of Commons Library.

While some DTI programmes have a strong regional emphasis, the vast majority are delivered nationally and it is not therefore possible to provide precise figures for expenditure by region for all schemes. For areas where programme spend can be attributed to individual offices the proportional spends are as follows:

Per cent. of spend under The Industrial Development Act 1982 Per cent. of spend under The Consultancy Initiatives
DTI NE 39.6 4.8
DTI NW 25.6 17.4
DTI YH 16.0 11.2
DTI EM 3.2 6.6
DTI WM 9.2 12.2
DTI SE 2.1 19.3
DTI SW 4.2 7.0
DTI East 5.4
Scotland and Wales 16.6

The budget for administrative expenditure in 1989–90 by the regional offices is £18.8 million, some 6 per cent. of the total administrative expenditure of the Department. The expenditure by region is as follows:

£ million
DTI EM 1.6
DTI NE 3.4
DTI WM 3.0
DTI SE 2.7
DTI YH 2.3
DTI NW 3.7
DTI East 0.5
DTI SW 1.5

A breakdown of staff by grade in each of the regional offices is as follows:

Department's research establishments. Information broken down by region on the administrative costs of these operations is not readily available.

The staff that they employ, however, represent some 14 per cent. of total DTI staffing (excluding Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland) and are located as follows:

Staff in post as at 1 January 1990
Number
North East 58
North West 184
Yorks and Humberside 100.5
East Midlands 87
West Midlands 276
South West 125.5
South East (excluding London) 547
Total 1,378