§ Mr. ByersTo ask the Secretary of State for the Environment how many staff his Department employs on a regional basis in each standard English region; what is the cost of running these regional operations; what was the total budget for each region in the latest available year; and what are the main purposes for which the budget is used.
§ Sir Paul BeresfordMy Department currently employs the following number of staff in each of the Government offices for the regions:
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Countryside commission regions and counties Number of countryside Stewardship agreements, and period of agreements (1994 figures provisional) 1 October 1991–30 1 October 1992–30 1 October 1993–30 1 October 1994–30 September 2001 September 2002 September 2003 September 2004 Eastern Bedfordshire 9 20 15 11 Cambridgeshire 22 37 22 18 Lincolnshire 17 29 46 21 Norfolk 43 44 48 19 Suffolk 37 36 31 25 Midlands Derbyshire (part also in North West region) 35 49 29 22 Hereford and Worcester 11 43 23 28 Leicestershire 9 26 11 22 Northamptonshire 9 41 23 15 Nottinghamshire 5 8 10 12 Shropshire 15 12 20 23 Staffordshire 6 15 15 11 Warwickshire 6 5 6 11 West Midlands 2 4 5 3 Northern Cleveland 3 2 4 10 Cumbria 41 33 21 39 Durham 8 18 9 16 Northumberland 33 51 47 30 Tyne and Wear 2 0 5 5
Number Government Office for the North East 99 Government Office for the North West 164 Government Office for Yorkshire and Humberside 134 Government Office for Merseyside 65 Government Office for the West Midlands 120 Government Office for the East Midlands 104 Government Office for the Eastern Region 71 Government Office for the South West 77 Government Office for the South East 90 Government Office for London 131 These figures exclude regionally based Property Holdings, Her Majesty's inspectorate of pollution and rent assessment panel staff.
Information about the cost to my Department of running each office, the activities carried out by the offices and the programme budgets of each office was given in my replies to the hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen (Mr. Denham), Official Report, 25 January 1995, columns 210–12.