§ Mr. MaclennanTo ask the Secretary of State for Defence what his Department's policy is on(a) advertising and (b) acknowledging company sponsorship on the websites of his Department, agencies and non-departmental public bodies; which companies (i) have placed advertisements and (ii) are acknowledged as sponsors on those websites; how much revenue has been received for each financial year since 1997 from such advertisements and sponsorship; and if that revenue has been retained within the budget of his Department, agencies and non-departmental public bodies. [119543]
§ Dr. Moonie[holding answer 19 April 2000]: My Department's policies on advertising and sponsorship of its Departmental websites come under the existing conventions on Government publishing and advertising as set out in the Guidance on the Work of the Government Information Service, which can be found at http://www.cabinet-office.gov.uk/central/1999/workgis/index.htm. The Department's websites are subject to the policy guidelines issued by the Cabinet Office on the use, management and design of Government websites. These guidelines are available at http://www.iagchampions.gov.uk/guidelines/websites. They permit the use of advertisements and sponsorship on Government websites.
No advertisements and no sponsorship acknowledgements which generate revenue appear on the Department's principal websites, nor have there been any in the past. To the best of my knowledge this applies also to the websites maintained by individual Defence Agencies, units and non-departmental public bodies.
Where a company has sponsored a major Service event and a related web page exists on one of the Department's websites, that page has on occasion included the company's logo which in some cases links to the company's own website. This has been the case with some events announced on the Royal Navy and British Army websites, but no revenue has been generated by the appearance of logos. The websites for the Red Arrows and Blue Eagles aerobatic teams have been provided at no cost by commercial web designers Deltaweb, who provide a link to their own site. Some other sites, designed under contract, include acknowledgements and links to their designers' own websites.
The Ministry of Defence's main website includes a search facility provided free of charge by the International Relations and Security Network and Eurospider Information Technology AG, under the auspices of NATO's Partnership for Peace initiative. The Met. Office website similarly uses free search facilities provided by Excite.com. Links are provided to their websites. No revenue has been generated in the process.
The British Defence Staff (Washington) has a specific responsibility to promote UK defence exports to the United States. In pursuit of this objective, the BDS (W) website promotes specific items of defence equipment and its manufacturers. In addition the site search facility is presently advertiser-supported but provided free of charge by freefind.com.
Of the Department's non-departmental public bodies, the Royal Navy Submarine Museum currently includes links to BAE Systems to recognise sponsorship of 118W museum exhibits. However, no revenue has been generated by the appearance of the relevant logos and links on the website.