§ Mr. SteenTo ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is the annual budget for his departmental deregulation unit; how many staff it employs; and of these how many(a) are career civil servants and of what grades, (b) have been seconded from business, and (c) have experience of the private sector. [30056]
359W
§ Mr. Jack[holding answer 21 May 1996]: Within the Chancellor's Departments much of the work on particular deregulation issues is carried out by the policy teams with overall responsibility for those particular issues. Separate units do exist within the Treasury, Customs and Excise, Inland Revenue and the Office for National Statistics which have the responsibility of co-ordinating the deregulation effort of these departments, but in each case, deregulation represents only part of the workload of these units.
Treasury
In the Treasury, deregulation work is co-ordinated by the competition, deregulation and energy team, which has total annual budget of £231,048. The team has seven staff, comprising one grade 5, one (part time) grade 7, one HEO(D), one HEO, one assistant economist (half time equivalent, also has duties in another team), one AO and one personal secretary. Of these the grade 5, HEO, AO and personal secretary spend part of their time dealing with deregulation. All of these staff are career civil servants; none have been seconded from business.HM Customs and Excise
In Customs and Excise, deregulation is co-ordinated by the business unit, which allocates £80,000 of its annual budget to work on this issue. Within the unit, one grade 7 and one HEO work full time, and one EO works half time on deregulation. All of these staff are career civil servants; none have been seconded from business.Office for National Statistics
The survey control and deregulation unit of the Office for National Statistics has a total annual budget of £162,500. This unit has six staff, comprising one grade 7, two HEOs. one EO, and two AOs, all of whom spend part of their time dealing with deregulation. All of these staff are career civil servants; none have been seconded from business.Inland Revenue
Inland Revenue's departmental deregulation unit has six staff, comprising one grade 5, a grade 6, two grade 7s, one SEO one personal secretary. This unit is a subdivision of a larger team, which has various other responsibilities, and there are no separate figures available covering the costs of deregulation work. All of these staff are career civil servants; none have been seconded from business.Many of the officials listed, in each of the four departmental deregulation units, will have experience of contacts with the private sector, whether in the course of their present duties, or gained in previous posts. Each of these departments have separate internal accounting systems, so the figures for expenditure by the various deregulation units are not available on the same basis.