§ Mr. Staintonasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he will take the necessary steps to discover the estimated cost per question of processing, respectively, Written and Oral Questions from hon. Members of this House during a month in the near future; and whether he will circulate the reply in the OFFICIAL REPORT with details of significant cost elements and references to any Ministries which differ markedly from the norm.
§ Mr. MacDermotPursuant to the Chief Secretary's reply of 7th May, 1965; c. 222, the costs incurred in Government Departments in preparing Answers for 879 Questions for Oral Answer and 673 Questions for Written Answer on which work began in the period from mid-June to mid-July have been analysed. The median cost for those for Oral Answer was £7 13s. 8d. and the average cost was £10 10s. 11d. The median cost for those for Written Answer was £5 11s. 6d. and the average cost was £7 11s. 4d. The range of cost was from under £1 to over £475. The distribution, by cost, is shown by the following table:
Cost Number of Questions Costed Over Up to Oral Written £ £ — 5 262 305 5 10 342 244 10 15 144 59 15 20 61 31 20 25 30 14 25 100 36 20 100 300 3 — 300 500 1 — 879 673 The circumstances affecting the cost naturally varied widely—for example, whether the information required involved consulting other Departments regional or local offices, or outside sources; or whether it could all be handled within a central office. The median cost for individual Departments with ten or more Questions (Oral and Written separately) 97W ranged steadily from £3 8s. 8d. to £7 15s. 0d. for Questions for Written Answer and from £3 17s. 9d. to £14 13s. 1d. for Questions for Oral Answer.