Written question asked by Oliver Heald (Conservative) on Tuesday, 9 March 2010, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Thursday, 11 March 2010. It was answered by Ian Lucas (Labour) on Wednesday, 7 April 2010 on behalf of the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills.

Departmental Internet

Question: To ask the Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills how many designs for its (a) internal website and (b) intranet his Department and its predecessors have commissioned since 2005; and what the cost was of each such design.

Answer: The Department has commissioned four intranet designs since 2005 involving the use of external companies.The Human Resources (HR) section of the intranet for the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (BERR) was substantially redesigned in 2007/08. The cost of this redesign was £16,653.The intranet for the Department of Innovation, Universities and Skills (DIUS) was designed in-house when DIUS was created in June 2007. The intranet was redesigned in 2008/09 at a cost of £2,800 for the main DIUS intranet and £2,400 for the Government Office for Science (GO-Science) intranet.Existing intranet designs were used when BIS was created in June 2009 by merging BERR and DIUS. The BIS intranet was updated in September 2009 at a cost of £6,400. This included the costs of software fixes and improvements. The specific costs for design are not available.The BIS intranet is currently being redesigned to improve its accessibility and to provide staff better access to corporate information. The costs for this redesign cannot be provided as the work is not yet complete.

Secondary information