§ Mr. LlwydTo ask the Secretary of State for Wales, (1) how many staff posts there are within his Department at the present time; and how many of these posts(a) require the speaking of Welsh to be a prerequisite, (b) consider the speaking of Welsh to be desirable and (c) consider linguistic capacity in neutral terms;
(2) how many staff are employed in each section of his Department; and how many staff members in each section speak Welsh;
468W(3) how many members of staff are currently employed by the Welsh Office on a part-time and full-time basis; how many staff members do not speak the Welsh language; and how many are currently attending Welsh learner courses;
(4) if he will make it his policy to offer paid time-off work to employees wishing to attend courses to learn Welsh.
§ Mr. David HuntThere are currently 2,318 permanent staff employed in my Department, of whom 220 are part time. All staff who would like to learn Welsh are strongly encouraged to do so. Training is through courses and the use of distance learning packages. Paid time off and departmental sponsorship are available. The numbers involved are not held centrally. The general staffing requirement is for there to be adequate numbers of Welsh-speaking staff in all areas to meet the needs of clients. There are currently nine specific posts which require a good working knowledge of Welsh.
§ Mr. LlwydTo ask the Secretary of State for Wales what is the total publicity budget of his Department for the latest year for which figures are available; how much of the budget has been designated for publicity literature; and, of that proportion, how much has specifically been spent on Welsh language publicity materials.
§ Mr. David HuntPublicity expenditure in 1992–93 is planned to be about £2,500,000. No designation for publicity literature is possible as the allocation of funds to different media often takes place only as projects develop.
Of the £726,890 spent on publicity materials this year, £153,180 was on Welsh only and £404,382 on bilingual material.