§ Mr. GeorgeTo ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster how much has been spent by his Department in each of the past five years on the evaluation of Department programmes; and what proportion this constitutes of(a) the amount allocated for evaluation and (b) the Department's total budget.
§ Mr. ForthEvaluation of departmental programmes is carried out principally by specialist staff and consultants.378W Many of the staff concerned are also engaged on other work, so it is not possible to give precise figures for the cost of evaluation. The following figures give an approximate indication:
£ 1985–86 1986–87 1987–88 DTI specialist staff 440,000 440,000 430,000 Consultants 109,000 52,000 131,000 Total 549,000 492,000 561,000 These figures do not take account of the contribution to evaluation of staff concerned with programme management in the relevant line divisions, or of the cost of consultancy studies financed from line divisions' budgets. Such costs, and costs for years before 1985–86, cannot be separately identified without disproportionate cost.
My Department does not have a separate allocation of funds for evaluation work. The objective is for evaluation generally not to cost more than 0.5 per cent, of the total expenditure of the programme under evaluation. The proportion of total expenditure for which my Department has policy responsibility, represented by the above figures is as follows:
Per cent. 1985–86 0.03 1986–87 0.02 1987–88 0.05