HC Deb 03 May 1977 vol 931 cc113-4W
Mr. Spearing

asked the Minister for the Civil Service what is the approximate percentage of the costs of the Parliamentary Press in the latest convenient year, taken by each of the following or similar categories of activities, showing where the appropriate split between setting and printing costs: general overheads and management, Official Report of the Lords and Commons, respectively, in each of the editions, Official Report of Standing Committees, Papers and Reports of Select Committees, items in the Vote Bundle and miscellaneous items.

Mr. Charles R. Morris

The total budgeted cost of St. Stephen's Parliamentary Press for the year 1976–77 was £6 million and the actual costs are not expected to vary greatly from this figure. The cost of the following items expressed as a percentage of that production cost were as follows:

per cent.
Official Report of Commons (Daily Parts) 19
Official Report of Commons Weekly etc 11
Official Report of Standing Committees (the bulk of this work is produced by commercial contractors) 2
Papers for Select Committees 9
The Vote Bundle 24
Bills and Acts 11
Miscellaneous Parliamentary items 4
Total Parliamentary work 80

The split between various elements of costs will vary between one job and the next, but overall the following allocations comprised the Budget for 1976–77:

per cent.
Industrial wages 66
Non-industrial wages 10
General overheads 24

The cost of setting as compared with the other production departments was:

per cent.
Setting 50
Platemaking 3
Machine 25
Finishing 22

The Official Report of the Lords was produced by a commercial printer.