§ Mr. TyrieTo ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry when Foresight was established; which of its reports are placed in the public domain; how many(a) departmental and (b) non-departmental special advisers participate in its work; how many regular (i) non-departmental and (ii) departmental staff participate in its work; and how many of these work for Foresight on a full-time basis. [152037]
§ Mr. Alan JohnsonForesight was established, and the first round launched in 1994, with a second round starting in 1999. All the reports produced by Foresight are in the public domain.
No departmental or non-departmental special advisers participate in the work of Foresight. (However, special advisers give advice to Ministers on the programme and its outputs from time to time as they do for any other Departmental activity.)
There are currently 40 people in the Foresight Secretariat in the Office of Science and Technology/DTI, and these are the only people fully occupied on Foresight. They are made up as follows:
Organisation Full-time Part-time DTI 24 3 Other Government Departments 3 — Research Council Secondees 2 — Industry Secondees 1 1 Consultant 1 — Temporary/Agency Staff 5 — In addition, of the 500–600 people who were members of the 14 Foresight Panels and 64 associated Task Forces in the current round, 18 were DTI officials and 72 were officials from other Government Departments and the Research Councils.