HC Deb 25 February 2002 vol 380 cc795-6W
Mr. Bercow

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions what the total cost of his Department's website was in real terms in each of the last four years; and how many hits it received in each of those years. [36140]

Dr. Whitehead

The estimated cost of the main DTLR website (www.dtlr.gov.uk) in 2001–02 is £396,000. This covers the period from 8 June 2001 to 31 March 2002 and includes direct staff costs (e.g. salaries), development and HTML coding costs. Overhead costs, such as accommodation are not held centrally and can be provided only at disproportionate cost.

Since the creation of DTLR, to 31 January 2002, this site has had approximately 22,700,000 page requests. The estimated total to 31 March 2002 is 28,700,000.

Information, prior to 8 June 2001, relating to DTLR's ambit of responsibilities, is not available in a comparable format and could not be provided without incurring disproportionate cost.