Both before and after July 2024, the Department has appointed a number of staff from outside the Civil Service, including appointments made through fair and open competition where external candidates were successful.

The department has appointed 19 individuals, excluding Civil Servants and Special Advisers, through the route of regulated public and unregulated public appointments, and direct ministerial appointments.

All appointees made through these routes into the department are published at: https://apply-for-public-appointment.service.gov.uk/announcements and https://apply-for-public-appointment.service.gov.uk/direct-ministerial-appointments-announcements.

Since July 2024, my Department has made several appointments of individuals from outside the civil service to public bodies and advisory roles.

Appointments made by the Northern Ireland Office generally fall within three categories: Public Appointments regulated by the Commissioner for Public Appointments, Unregulated Public Appointments and Direct Ministerial Appointments.

Regulated appointments follow the strict processes set out in the Governance Code on Public Appointments, while Direct Ministerial Appointments are made to provide short-term advisory functions, bringing specialist external expertise directly to Ministers.

In line with our transparency obligations, all such appointments are factually recorded and announced publicly on the Northern Ireland Office GOV.UK page:

https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/northern-ireland-office

Appointments made since July 2024 are as follows:

Regulated Public Appointments:

Equality Commission for Northern Ireland

Nazia Latif was appointed as Commissioner on 1 September 2024.

Geraldine McGahey was reappointed as Chief Commissioner from 1 March 2025.

Maureen Brunt, Siobhan Cullen, Ellen Finlay, Monica Fitzpatrick, John McAllister and Preeti Yellamaty were reappointed as Commissioners and Harry Robinson was appointed as Commissioner, with each to commence from 1 June 2025.

Stephen Matthews and Lisa Caldwell were reappointed as Commissioners from 1 March 2026.

A short term extension to the appointment of Neil Anderson as Deputy Chief Commissioner was announced with effect from 1 March 2026.

Kevin Doherty was appointed as a Commissioner with effect from 5 March 2026.

Colin Kennedy was appointed as a Deputy Chief Commissioner with effect from 1 September 2026.

Kristel Miller was appointed as a Commissioner with effect from 1 September 2026.

Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission

Mairead Holder was appointed as Commissioner on 1 September 2024.

Northern Ireland Office Non-Executive Board Member

Fiona Ross was reappointed as a Non-Executive Director to the Northern Ireland Office on 1 March 2026.

A short term extension to the appointment of Les Philpott as Lead Non-Executive Director to the NIO was announced with effect from 30 September 2026.

Unregulated Public Appointments:

Civil Service Commissioners for Northern Ireland

David MacAnulty and Donald Leeson were appointed as Civil Service Commissioners for Northern Ireland with effect from 1 October 2025.

NI Veterans Commissioner's Office Commissioner Reappointment

David Johnstone was reappointed to a second term with effect from 1 September 2026.

Independent Reporting Commission

John McBurney, Mitchell Reis and Monica McWilliams had their appointments as Commissioners extended with effect from 1 October 2026.

Direct Ministerial Appointments:

Robert Hamill Inquiry

Sir John Evans was appointed as Chair on 7 October 2024.

Intertrade UK

Baroness Arlene Foster was appointed as Chair, and Dr Esmond Birnie, Kirsty McManus, Suzanne Wylie, Roger Pollen and Angela McGowan were appointed as Members on 28 February 2025.

Board of the International Fund for Ireland

Jointly appointed with the Irish Government, Shona McCarthy was appointed as Chair, alongside board members Janet McConkey, Katy Hayward, Angila Chada, and Bill Pauley on 1 March 2025. Anne Conaghan and Anne Carr were also reappointed to the Board on 1 March 2025.

Independent Expert Advisory Panel - Official History of UK Government Policy during the Troubles

Lord Paul Bew, Professor Caoimhe Nic Dháibhéid, Professor Henry Patterson, Professor Richard Bourke, Professor Helen Parr and Professor Ian McBride were appointed the independent expert advisory panel to make recommendations on key details of this project in April 2025.

Patrick Finucane Inquiry

Sir Gary Hickinbottom was appointed as Chair and Baroness Nuala O’Loan and Francesca Del Mese were appointed as Assessors on 13 June 2025.

Independent Expert on Paramilitary Group Transition to Disbandment

Fleur Ravensbergen was appointed on 23 September 2025, in a joint appointment with the Irish Minister for Justice, Home Affairs and Migration.

All appointments listed above have been published on the Northern Ireland Office GOV.UK page. Further details on all public and direct ministerial appointments are regularly published.

Since July 2024, the Department has made appointments from outside the Civil Service through public appointments and direct ministerial appointments. Information on these appointments is publicly available on GOV.UK here and here.

The Home Office publishes Staff numbers including agency staff in its Annual report as exampled by the 2024-2025 Annual report, pages 165-166 inclusive at https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/688c9785a34b939141463e37/HO_ARA_2024-25_Book_WEB_Final_v3+CorrSlip.pdf.

Prior reports are available at Home Office annual reports and accounts - GOV.UK

Other than special advisers, the Scotland Office has made one appointment from outside the civil service since July 2024.

Gillian McGregor has been appointed to the Boundary Commission for Scotland, an advisory non-departmental public body funded by the Scotland Office. The appointment was made on a fixed term basis through open competition using the procedures laid down by the Commissioner for Public Appointments.

Yes, The Attorney General’s Office has appointed a number of candidates who were external to the Civil Service into roles. This includes candidates who applied through standard recruitment campaigns on Civil Service Jobs and were successful after open and fair competition, as well as those who have joined on secondment and fixed term appointment.

Since July 2024, my Department has made one public appointment to a Non-Executive Director role.

Candidates that have been successfully appointed to a public appointment (whether regulated or unregulated) are generally announced on the Public Appointments Service announcements page. Candidates that have been successfully appointed to a direct ministerial appointment are generally announced on the Direct Ministerial Appointments Announcement portal.

The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office has conducted open recruitment exercises for a large number of posts at all levels since July 2024, which has often meant appointing individuals from outside the civil service.

Since July 2024, the Department has made appointments from outside the Civil Service in line with guidance on public appointments and Direct Ministerial Appointments (DMA)

Details of public appointments are publicly available on the Public Appointments website and DMA appointments are made via the DMA announcement page on Gov.uk.

The Department has made appointments since July 2024. Candidates that have been successfully appointed to a public appointment (whether regulated or unregulated) are generally announced on the Public Appointments Service announcements page. Candidates that have been successfully appointed to a direct ministerial appointment are generally announced on the Direct Ministerial Appointments Announcement portal.

DWP is committed to harnessing the benefits of artificial intelligence to improve both the productivity of our workforce, and the quality of the services we deliver to the millions of people who rely on us. The Department’s principal AI tool for official use is Copilot Chat, which is provided securely under its Microsoft agreement. Access to the listed AI systems, with the exception of DeepSeek, is permitted but security controls apply which prevents copying, pasting and file transfer. Use of such systems is monitored to ensure compliance with departmental data handling and security policies.

The requested data is not held centrally in a reportable format.

Our debt management workforce is deployed flexibly across all taxes to ensure efficient collection of debts owed and are not allocated to specific taxes. It is therefore not possible to provide a separate figure for staff working solely on VAT or corporation tax recovery.

HMRC publishes information on VAT and corporation tax losses in its Annual Report and Accounts, of which the most recent can be found here: HMRC Annual Report and Accounts 2024-25.

HMRC does not hold a separate breakdown of companies dissolved with unpaid VAT or corporation tax.

It is not possible to provide the full-time equivalent number of staff who deal with number plate issues. The staff involved do not exclusively work on number plate related issues and also investigate other types of cases.

While on road enforcement of number plates issues is a matter for the police, the information in the table below shows the number of occasions where members of the public contacted the DVLA about correspondence, fines or penalties that they have been received from third parties about the use of vehicles which they do not recognise or accept responsibility for in the last five years.

However, it is important to note that the misuse of a registration number or number plate is just one of the possible reasons why someone might receive such correspondence. A proportion of these cases will have been made as a result of errors, for example where a vehicle registration number has been entered incorrectly.

Due to the difficulty of disaggregating the number of staff who are employed to produce social media content from staff who are employed to work on broader digital communications, it is not possible to report exact figures in response to this question.

Due to the difficulty of disaggregating the number of staff who are employed to produce social media content from staff who are employed to work on broader digital communications, it is not possible to report exact figures in response to this question.

Due to the difficulty of disaggregating the number of staff who are employed to produce social media content from staff who are employed to work on broader communication, it is not possible to report exact figures in response to this question.

Due to the difficulty of disaggregating the number of staff who are employed to produce social media content from staff who are employed to work on broader digital communications, it is not possible to report exact figures in response to this question.

Communications staff work across social media content as well as broader digital communications. It is therefore not possible to provide exact figures.