§ Mr. BercowTo ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what the total cost of her Department's website was in real terms in each of the last four years; and how many hits it received in each of those years. [36149]
§ Ms HewittThe support costs underpinning the operation of the Department's websites are included in the service charges paid under the DTI's overall IT service contract. The website costs are not identified separately in these charges and therefore the figures requested are not available.
The core DTI site www.dti.gov.uk has been updated twice in the last four years, involving design costs of £13,075 in FY 1999–2000, and £16,560 in FY 2000–01 (figures include VAT, and at FY 2001–02 prices). A more substantial redevelopment of the site went live on 9 April 2002, at a cost of £60,294 including VAT.
The Department has been collecting access statistics on a comparable basis since July 1998. The number of hits to the site www.dti.gov.uk since then has been:
- July 1998—December 1998: 16,265,698
- January 1999—December 1999: 59,498,841
- January 2000—December 2000: 81,730,285
- January 2001—December 2001: 95,226,594.