§ Mr. MaclennanTo ask the Secretary of State for Social Security 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 websites, indicating the cases in which the expenditure has been above that budgeted; and if he will list for each website (i) the topics which have been covered, (ii) the current average number of hits per month and (iii) the estimated expenditure on each website for each of the next three years. [115842]
§ Angela EagleThe Department and its agencies use the internet as one of a variety of methods to communicate with the public. The DSS website is updated regularly and includes separate webpages for the individual agencies and others. The website covers numerous topics and contains over 3,000 pages providing a range of information on benefits, complaints procedures and corporate documentation such as press releases, Ministerial speeches and Agency business plans.
273WThe Departmental website is currently under development and is due to be relaunched shortly to take account of the Department's priorities in delivering services to its identified client groups. £245,000 has been allocated from the Departmental publicity budgets for this relaunch to ensure the DSS website meets Government website standards and addresses the criticisms voiced in the NAO report. Ongoing departmental costs at this stage are not yet finalised but are likely to change to reflect the need to improve content and service provision.
The information that is available on costing and visits to the website are shown in the tables. To provide further breakdowns of the figures and costing would incur disproportionate costs.
Topics BA site Benefit Information, Local office details, reports and leaflets, Press Releases, Customer Charter, Complaint Procedures, Pension Forecasting Information, Feedback section CSA site Child Support Maintenance leaflets, CSA publications, frequently asked questions and answers and CSA contact details HQ site General DSS information, DSS Facts and Figures, DSS reports and publications, speeches, press releases, the Decision Makers Guide, statistical information from ASD ITSA site ITSA publications, ITSA fact sheets and the history of ITSA WPA site Background to the scheme, War Pension Welfare Service, types of claim, how to make a claim, supplementary allowances, war widows entitlement, treatment and allowance, your rights to appeal and contacting WPA