§ Mrs. RocheTo ask the President of the Board of Trade what alternative uses have been found for the £1.37 million of the expenditure on the Consultancy Brokerage Service referred to in his answer of 23 October 1995,Official Report, column 420, which was spent on information technology hardware. [1125]
§ Mr. LangA number of the items have been redeployed within my Department, thus avoiding the need to purchase such equipment for the projects being set up in those areas. This redeployed equipment has a current book value—that is, cost minus 30 per cent depreciation per year—of £120,316. A small amount of hardware has been sold to the external contractors who were to have delivered the Consultancy Brokerage Service for an aggregate of £43,986. The remainder will now be offered for sale to other Government Departments, which is the normal procedure in the case of disposal of Government assets. Any items not utilised across the government estate will be offered for sale at auction, in line with Government accounting procedures.
On further checking, I would now like to make it clear that the previous answer to which the hon Member refers—23 October 1995, Official Report, column 420—was incorrect. The sum of £1.37 million was the total amount spent on information technology development, of which £395,376 was spent on equipment.