To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many staff in his Department have been employed through employment or recruitment agencies in each year since 2010-11.

The Department uses recruitment agencies to support permanent appointments to the Senior Civil Service (SCS). The table below shows the number of SCS appointments that have been made where a recruitment agency was involved, for each financial year since 2010-11.

It should be noted that the above information does not include recruitment numbers for our executive agencies.

Below SCS level, recruitment agencies are only used for components of a recruitment exercise eg. advertising, sifting or assessment tests.