§ Mr. MaclennanTo ask the Secretary of State for Scotland 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 websites, indicating the cases in which the expenditure has been above that budgeted; and if he will list for each website (i) the topics which have been covered, (ii) the current average number of hits per months and (iii) the estimated expenditure on each website for each of the next three years. [115802]
§ Dr. ReidThe information is as follows:
- (a) Set up costs: £2,700
- (b) Operating costs to date: £1,300
- (c) Topics covered in the Scotland Office website (www.scottishsecretary.gov.uk):
- Welcome message from the Secretary of State
- Scotland Office news releases
- Profiles of the Ministers
- Transcripts of speeches
- What the Scotland Office does
- Advocate General for Scotland (currently under construction)
- Contact addresses and phone numbers
- Selected links to other sites (mainly Government)
- (d) The website was launched in November 1999. The number of hits has risen from 14,775 in November to 83,857 in February 2000. The number of page requests per month over the same period has risen from 2,407 to 8,883. The number of unique visitors to the site is not currently measured.
111W - (e) Annual expenditure on the website over the next three years is currently estimated at £2,000 per year but the design and content of the site will be kept under review