HC Deb 11 May 2004 vol 421 cc234-5W
Matthew Taylor

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what the cost in(a) financial and (b) other terms was in (i) each financial year since 1997 and (ii) 2003–04 until the latest date for which figures are available of (A) developing and (B) maintaining (1) his Department's website and (2) each website for which his Department is responsible; and how many (C) unique hosts and (D) hits there were in each month for each website in (iii) each financial year since 1997 and (iv) 2003–04 until the latest date for which numbers are available. [155855]

Fiona Mactaggart

The information is as follows.

Costs (Home Office) and page impressions

The available information is shown in the table. For 1998 to 2001, it reflects expenditure on the corporate Home Office website only. Figures for 2001 onwards include all known Home Office funded web properties excluding Criminal Justice System (CJS) Online.

Cost(£) Number of page

impressions

1997–98 Not separately identified Not available
1998–99 Not separately identified Not available
1999–2000 40,614 9,066,894
2000–01 58,170 16,495,939
2001–02 1,576,214 3,830,772
2002–03 11,643,356 16,099,197
2003–04 2849,381.82 332,690,512

1These figures include the cost of the site volcomgrants.gov.uk but no statistics of use are available.

Caveats

As they have evolved, the Home Office websites have used the most suitable statistical analysis software available. The figures shown above therefore represent the most accurate information available to us at the time of each reported statistic.

Because members of the website team have not been employed exclusively on this work throughout the period, their costs have been excluded from this table.

Information is not held centrally on websites that are managed independently of the main site.

Unique Hosts

42 including IND (main IND site, working in Britain and UK nationality sites) and Crime Reduction (38 excluding these) at March 2004. Figures not kept for previous years.

2 To 5 March 2004, (excludes IND and Crime Red).

3 To January 2004.

The available information shown in the table for 1998 to 2001 reflects expenditure on the corporate Home Office website only. Figures for 2001 onwards include all known Home Office funded web properties excluding CJS Online.