§ Dr. TongeTo ask the Minister of State, Department for International Development what percentage of the research budget was spent on evaluation in(a) 2001 and (b) 2002; and what percentage is planned to be spent in 2003. [120492]
§ Hilary BennThe programme of evaluations commissioned by DFID's Evaluation Department is independent of DFID's other programme activities and is funded from a separate budget line. The following figures relate only to evaluation activities managed by Evaluation Department. However, other evaluation activities are undertaken within DFID, including those within bilateral and multilateral programmes and within policy and research programmes. Since spending on these decentralised evaluation activities is charged in each case against the budget for the relevant programme, expenditure is spread across DFID's overall budget. Consequently, expenditure figures for these activities are not readily available and could not be accurately identified without disproportionate cost. Similarly, expenditure on research has been spread across a range of programmes and annual totals are difficult to estimate. It is therefore difficult to compare expenditure on research and on evaluation respectively, and the cost of doing so would be disproportionate.
Evaluation Department's actual expenditure (including administration costs) in the calendar years 2001 and 2002, and its estimate for expenditure in 2003 (including administration costs), is as follows:
Evaluation expenditure Amount (£ million) 2001 0.913 2002 1.877 2003 2.402 The actual and anticipated expenditure, including administration costs, expressed in financial years is:
Actual and anticipated expenditure Financial year Amount (£ million) 2001–02 1.413 2002–03 1.838 2003–04 (estimated) 2.440