§ Mr. Don FosterTo ask the Secretary of State for Social Security, pursuant to his answer of 17 December 1998,Official Report, columns 718–79, (1) if he will list the expenditure not included in his answer incurred (a) by task forces and review bodies, (b) by focus groups, (c) on market research and (d) for publications and publicity; and if he will list the bodies which incurred the expenditure; [71032]
(2) if he will list the expenditure not included in his answer incurred by (a) his agencies and non-departmental public bodies and (b) the Central Office of Information for relevant work carried out for his Department. [71033]
§ Mr. TimmsTask forces and review bodies do not incur any expenditure other than staffing costs, which are met from within existing Departmental running costs.
555WThis Department's Headquarters expenditure on focus groups in general e.g. exploring attitudes of specific clients and/or staff groups, is as follows:
£ Year Amount 1997–98 110,000 1998–991 190,000 1Estimated The cost of publications and other publicity not included in the previous answer is as follows:
Total spend for year 1997–98 Business unit Total publicity cost (£) Benefits Agency 2,693,476 Contributions Agency 1,079,857 Child Support Agency 305,083 War Pensions Agency - Headquarters 1,858,917
Estimated spend for the year 1998–99 Business unit Total estimated publicity cost (£) Benefits Agency 3,409,579 Contributions Agency 1,585,888 Child Support Agency 238,984 War Pensions Agency — Headquarters 4,446,979 Non-departmental bodies do not incur expenditure on the items listed in my previous Answer.
Information for the Central Office of Information is not available as it is not possible to disaggregate the expenditure on relevant work carried out by the Central Office of Information from the total amount spent on publicity.
§ Mr. Don FosterTo ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if he will list the expenditure incurred by his Department, agencies and non-departmental public bodies on(a) the setting up and (b) the operation of web sites, indicating the cases in which the expenditure has been above that budgeted; and if he will list for each web site (i) the topics covered, (ii) the current average number of hits per month and (iii) the estimated expenditure on each web site for each of the next three years. [70964]
§ Angela EagleThe Department and its agencies use the Internet as one of a variety of methods to communicate with the public. The DSS website is updated regularly and includes separate webpages for the individual agencies and others. The website covers numerous topics and contains over 3,000 pages providing a range of information on benefits, complaints procedures and corporate documentation such as press releases, Ministerial speeches and Agency business plans.
556W
Average number of hits per month on departmental websites Agency Number Benefits Agency 294,018 Contributions Agency 166,578 Child Support Agency 66,945
Average number of hits per month on departmental websites Agency Number Information Technology Services Agency 15,608 War Pensions Agency 10,190 Headquarters 295,417 Analytical Services Division 14,272 Lone Parent Information Service 55,688 Pensions Information 57,972 Working Benefit Information 17,646 Other corporate information 288,969 Central Adjudication Service 17,870 Independent Case Examiner 592 Industrial Injuries Advisory Council 105 Pensions Advisory Service (OPAS) 4,744 Women's National Commission 5,699 Total 1,312,313
£000 Estimated set up costs 20 Current web service delivery costs1 27 Estimated expenditure: web service delivery costs1 1999–2000 28.4 2000–01 29.8 2001–02 31.3 Estimated expenditure: DSS staff costs1 1999–2000 210 2000–01 220.5 2001–02 231.5 1 These costs are available only for the Department as a whole and are borne by the Information Technology Services Agency who undertake a corporate role with respect to DSS Internet service provision