§ Mr. BercowTo ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what assessment he has made of the total real terms expenditure of his Department, its agencies and non-departmental public bodies on publicity in each of the years(a) 1997–98, (b) 1998–99, (c) 1999–2000, (d) 2000–01 and (e) 2001–02 (i) to date and (ii) as estimated for the whole of the present year; and if he will break these figures down to indicate expenditure on (A) advertising and (B) press and public relations. [36163]
§ Ruth KellyThe available information is given in the following table. The figures relating to the Treasury are not held centrally and could be obtained only at disproportionate cost. Information relating to the publicity is not available for the Valuation Office Agency. It would be inappropriate to give figures for advertising relating to the Royal Mint in accordance with Exemption 13 (Commercial Confidentiality) of the Code of Access to Government Information. Neither the Inland Revenue nor Customs and Excise hire public relations consultancy services, and each has its own press office financed through its normal operational costs.
389W
Costs £ 1997–98 1998–99 1999–2000 2000–01 2001–02 Royal Mint Public relations 84,000 102,553 103,787 104,038 102.000 Office of Government Commerce2 Advertising n/a n/a n/a 0 3,878 1 Launched 1 April 1998 2 Launched 1 April 2000 Inland Revenue advertising costs in 2000–01 reflect the concurrent running of several campaigns, such as working families tax credit, children's tax credit, payroll giving, income tax self assessment and pay as you earn online. Customs and Excise expenditure in the 2000–01 period includes the costs of campaigns following on from the Taylor report and Tackling Tobacco Strategy, as well as a centralisation of the communications budget. Expenditure by the Office for National Statistics in the periods 2000–01 and 2001–02 reflect the cost of publicising the Census.
§ Mr. BercowTo ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer how much and what proportion of the departmental expenditure limit for 2002–03 will be accounted for by staff costs; what the figures were for 2001–02; and if he will make a statement. [61032]
§ Ruth KellyReliable estimates for 2002–03 spending to 31 May are not available. Estimated outturn spending figures for 2001–02 can be found in Public Expenditure Statistical Analyses 2002–03, published in May 2002 as Command Paper 5401.