§ Mr. LawsTo ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what his estimate is of total expenditure by his Department on(a) focus groups and (b) opinion polls in each year from 1995–96 to 2003–04; and if he will make a statement. [162754]
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§ Mr. Charles ClarkeThe Department commissions tightly focused market research to help with the strategic development of publicity campaigns and their evaluation. The expenditure on opinion and market research projects for the years since 1995 is listed in the following table. Information is not held in a form which would allow the projects to be differentiated into the categories requested; some would involve a combination of methodologies.
£000 1995–96 596 1996–97 647 1997–98 863 1998–99 1,409 1999–2000 1,687 2000–01 2,340 2001–02 1,256 2002–03 2,078 2003–04 (to date) 1,564