§ Mr. Don FosterTo ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry for what reasons he was not able to provide a figure for expenditure on public opinion research in his answer to the hon. Member for Bath of 28 January 1999,Official Report, column 315; and for what reasons this did not apply to his answer to the hon. Member for Gordon (Mr. Bruce) of 17 February 1998, Official Report, columns 567–69. [70669]
§ Mr. Byers[holding answer 11 February 1999]: Information on the cost of public opinion research is not separately identified. The list of surveys and cost given in the answer to the hon. Member for Gordon (Mr. Bruce) on 17 February 1998, Official Report, columns 567–69 included all surveys which involved an element of public opinion gathering but it is not possible separately to identify the costs of that element.
§ Mr. Don FosterTo ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if he will list the expenditure incurred by his Department, agencies and non-departmental public bodies on(a) the setting up and (b) the operation of web sites, indicating the cases in which the expenditure has been above that budgeted; and if he will list for each web site (i) the topics covered, (ii) the current average number of hits per month and (iii) the estimated expenditure on each web site for each of the next three years. [70965]
§ Mr. Byers[holding answer 15 February 1999]: Management of the web sites of my Department, agencies and non-departmental public bodies, and Government Offices for the Regions is devolved to those with responsibility for particular areas. The costs associated with setting up and on-going operation of sites are not held or collected centrally and therefore the information requested could be provided only at disproportionate cost. The same is true both for future expenditure plans and for information on final costs versus initial budget estimates.
In terms of topics covered, the DTI site and associated sites now offer information on nearly every area of the Department's responsibilities and the central DTI site (those within the Web domain "www.dti.gov.uk") received an average of just over 3,000,000 hits per month over the last six months. Again, hits for all the sites for which my Department is responsible could be calculated only at disproportionate cost.
§ Mr. Don FosterTo ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, pursuant to his answer of 28 January 1999,Official Report, column 315, if he will list the expenditure not included in his answer incurred by (a) his 667W agencies and non-departmental public bodies and (b) the Central Office of Information for relevant work carried out for his Department. [71018]
§ Mr. Byers[holding answer 15 February 1999]: Expenditure on direct mail and advertising incurred through the COI and not included in my previous answer was £26,000 and £1.14 million respectively.
Chief Executives of the Department's Executive Agencies have been asked to write to the hon. Member direct. Expenditure for non-departmental public bodies is not held centrally and could be produced only at disproportionate cost.
§ Mr. Don FosterTo ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, pursuant to his answer of 28 January 1999,Official Report, column 315, if he will list the expenditure not included in his answer incurred (a) by task forces and review bodies, (b) by focus groups, (c) on market research and (d) for publications and publicity; and if he will list the bodies which incurred the expenditure. [71019]
§ Mr. Byers[holding answer 15 February 1999]: Information on expenditure by task forces, review bodies and focus groups is not held centrally and could be produced only at disproportionate cost.
Expenditure from DTI' s centrally-managed budgets for publications and all other forms of publicity, except advertising and direct mail, since May 1997 has been £6.59 million.