§ Mr. BurstowTo ask the Secretary of State for Health what the total expenditure on the Department of Health website was in each of the last five years. [95689]
§ Mr. LammyThe cost of the Department's website from 1998–99 to 2002–03 is shown in the table.
Financial Year Hosting and maintenance(£000) Website development(£000) Estimated staff costs2(£000) Total costs(£000) 1998–99 20.9 20 178.9 219.8 1999–00 54.3 30 229.4 313.7 2000–01 49.3 130.7 277.1 457.1 2001–02 73.32 1245.9 407.6 726.8 2002–03 (to 01/02/03) 1103.36 46 426.2 575.5 Notes: 1 This includes £16,840 in migration and set-up costs incurred on switching Internet Service Providers in June 2002. 2 Based on agreed civil service staff costs (including salaries, common services, etc.) The website was set up in 1996 and has grown from 100 pages to over 80,000 pages since then. The number of databases made available online has increased from one at thebeginning of 1998 to 60 in 2002.
In 2000, the Department embarked on a major redevelopment of the website in response to user feedback, the introduction of the Guidelines for UK government websites and an increase in use of the Internet as a vehicle for departmental publications. This was completed by the end of March 2002.
The website regularly receives in the region of five million hits per month and is consistently placed in the top six most-visited Government websites.