To ask the Attorney General, how many staff in the Law Officers' Departments and its executive agencies and associated bodies were engaged off-payroll in each of the last five years up to the most recent period for which figures are available.

The information requested is contained in the following tables.

The table below shows the average number of staff engaged off-payroll over the past five years by the Attorney General’s Office (AGO), Her Majesty’s Crown Prosecution Service Inspectorate (HMCPSI), and the Treasury Solicitor’s Department (TSol).

1 Off payroll staff includes temporary (agency) and contract staff, including lawyers, other professionals and administrators. None of the above mentioned staff members are civil servants. The majority are temporary staff engaged through employment agencies to cover short term vacancies and to secure specific specialist legal and support skills.

Prior to April 2014 the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) did not maintain a centralised record of staff employed off-payroll and it is not possible to provide information at the level of detail requested. The SFO can, however, provide an average number of temporary staff employed since April 2010. These figures are as follows:

At the end of December January 2015 there were 86 temporary staff working at the SFO.

The average number of staff in the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) who were engaged off-payroll during each of the last five years up to the most recent period for which figures are available is shown in the table below.

¹ The figures in the table have been calculated by taking relevant workforce statistics published each month and deriving an average for each financial year. It is possible, therefore, that the number of unique individuals employed during any financial year was higher than that indicated.