§ Mr. Nicholas Wintertonasked the Secretary of State for Transport what has been the total amount of money spent by his Department on advertising in each of the last five years which figures are available (a) of job vacancies and (b) for other reasons.
§ Mr. RidleyDirect expenditure by my Department and the Department of the Environment, including the Property Services Agency, for the past five years on statutory and classified press advertisements was as follows:
Year Amount £ 1979–80 500,262 1980–81 419,318 1981–82 605,299 1982–83 620,635 1983–84 873,207 These figures include spending by the Department of the Environment, since during the period in question, such expenditure fell within a common service provision for both Departments. They do not include the cost of a limited amount of statutory advertising in the London Gazette. (This is estimated to be approximately £10,000 in each of the years in question).
It is not possible to identify precisely how much was accounted for in the five years by the advertising of job vacancies and how much for other reasons. However, it is clear that only a small amount of this expenditure was incurred in advertising job vacancies; the majority being for the placement of notices advertising contracts to be let and similar matters.
In addition, expenditure on advertising undertaken on behalf of my Department by the Central Office of Information for each of the past five years was as follows:
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Year Amount £ £ 1979–80 4,748,000 1980–81 4,297,000 1981–82 4,820,000 1982–83 3,654,000 1983–84 5,189,000 This expenditure was incurred mainly for road safety and none for the purpose of advertising job vacancies.