§ Mr. Ian DavidsonTo ask the Secretary of State for Scotland (1) if she will list the public sector jobs which have been dispersed to Scotland in each of the last five years, broken down by Department or agency and from whence they came; [117318]
(2) if she will list the central Government Departments and agencies with which she is in contact to pursue the possibility of job dispersal to Scotland from elsewhere in the United Kingdom. [117319]
§ Mr. DarlingThere is no central register of the location of Government jobs. However, several Government Departments have a significant presence in Scotland, notably the Department for Work and Pensions who currently have 15,076 employees in Scotland, the Ministry of Defence (7,115), the Inland Revenue (8,500), the Department for International Development (515), and the Department for Trade and Industry (254).
In his 2003 Budget statement, my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced that, as part of the preparations for the next Comprehensive Spending Review, he had asked Sir Michael Lyons to lead a study into the scope for relocating public service staff from London and the South East to other parts of the UK. The study is still at an early stage in collecting and evaluating information from Government Departments on their operations.