HC Deb 09 January 1996 vol 269 c109W
Mr. Malcolm Bruce

To ask the secretary of state for wales what is his estimate of the cost of running his departmental office, and that of his predecessor for each year since 1990–91 including the current year, broken down into(a) telephone bills, (b) total staff costs, (c) press and communications, (d) entertainment, (e) alcoholic drinks, (f) non-alcoholic drinks, (g) stationery, (h) office refurbishment and (i) other. [6417]

Mr. Hague

The available information for my Department's private office, which serves all three Welsh Office Ministers, is as follows:

Private Office costs
£000
1990–91 1991–92 1992–93 1993–94 1994–95 1995–96(to end-November)
salaries1 425 434 540 636 615 403
Travel and Subsistence2 171 162 166 175 177 64
Hospitality 20 10 9 8 10 4
Stationery n/a 20 25 29 25 13
Training n/a n/a 0 2 0 0
Telecommunications 70 72 74 41 41 28

Notes:

1Includes the cost of the Secretary of State's special adviser as well as officials. Superannuation costs are included only from 1993–94.

2 Includes expenditure by Ministers as well as officials.

Expenditure on the other items in each of the last five years is not collected in the format requested but is included in the running cost expenditure of my Department, which is published in the Welsh Office departmental report for 1995 (Cm 2815).