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Written question asked by Pete Wishart (Scottish National Party) on Monday, 26 July 2010, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Monday, 6 September 2010. It was answered by Lord Robathan (Conservative) on Monday, 6 September 2010 on behalf of the Ministry of Defence.

Departmental Pensions

Question
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what the cost was of pension contributions incurred by (a) his Department and (b) each (i) non-departmental public body and (ii) executive agency for which he is responsible in (A) Scotland, (B) Wales, (C) each region of England and (D) Northern Ireland in each of the last three financial years; and what the planned expenditure is for 2010-11.
Answer

The pension costs of the Ministry of Defence (MOD) and the on-Vote Defence Agencies are provided in the following table:

£ million
2007-08 2008-09 2009-10 2010-11 (estimated)
MOD (including the on-Vote Agencies below) 1,825.0 1,849.0 2,046.0 2,175.0
Defence Storage & Distribution Agency¹ 14.4 12.6 12.2 n/a
Defence Vetting Agency 1.6 1.7 1.8 1.9
MOD Police & Guarding Agency 39.7 40.5 40.3 39.9
People, Pay & Pensions Agency 4.3 4.4 4.3 3.7
Service Children's Agency 5.5 5.4 5.5 5.6
Service Personnel & Veterans Agency 5.7 5.1 5.3 5.1
¹ The Defence Storage & Distribution Agency was disestablished on 31 July 2010.

The pension costs of our Trading Funds are as follows (the Trading Funds lie outside our departmental accounting boundary and these costs are not therefore included in the MOD total in the previous table):

£ million
2007-08 2008-09 2009-10 2010-11
Defence Support Group¹ n/a 14.8 13.6 14.6
Defence Science & Technology Laboratory 22.2 23.5 23.5 26.2
Met Office 11.2 12.1 12.2 12.4
UK Hydrographic Office 5.8 5.8 5.6 5.9
¹ The Defence Support Group was formed on 1 April 2008 from the merger of the Army Base Repair Organisation and the Defence Aviation Repair Agency.

We disclose the information above in our Annual Reports & Accounts and those of our on-vote Agencies and Trading Funds. Copies of Annual Reports and Accounts are placed in the Library of the House. A regional breakdown of pension costs is not held centrally and could be provided only at disproportionate cost.We do not contribute to the pension costs of the non-departmental public bodies we sponsor, except for the small number of civil servants supporting our advisory non-departmental public bodies. Their costs are included in the MOD total and could be provided separately only at disproportionate cost.

Secondary information

Type
Written question
Reference
12486; 515 c165-6W
Session
2010-12
Subjects
Pensions Ministry of Defence
Contains statistics
Yes
Link
View this Written question on www.publications.parliament.uk