I propose to take Questions Nos. 372, 373 and 374 together.
Under Section 159 of the Local Government Act 2001, each Chief Executive is responsible for the staffing and organisational arrangements necessary for carrying out the functions of the local authority for which he/she is responsible.
My Department oversees workforce planning for the local government sector, including the monitoring of overall local government sector employment levels. To this end, my Department gathers aggregate quarterly data on staff numbers in each local authority on a whole time equivalent basis. However, granular data, in terms of the detailed breakdown of the numbers and grades of the staff allocated to specific work areas within local authorities or the number of vacancies in specific work areas is not collected and consequently is not available in my Department. The relevant information would be available from each local authority.