To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, how many recruitment and employment agencies his Department has used to source staff in each year since 2010-11.

Until July 2012, DECC utilised the non-permanent framework for interim workers which had 21 suppliers. For agency workers DECC utilised the non-medical non-clinical framework which has 143 suppliers. DECC calls off these but does not hold central records of how many individual agencies on these frameworks have been used.

From August 2012, interim workers have been procured through the Contingent Labour 1 framework, which is a neutral vendor framework managed by Capita Business Services.

Since April 2012, from which date central records were kept, nine recruitment agencies have been used for recruitment services for DECC employees.