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Departmental Press: Subscriptions

Answer

In the last 12 months the Department's Communication Directorate spent £117,105 on national and regional press cuttings services. Data from our accounting system show the following spend (excluding VAT) per month:

	National cuttings supplier—Durrants (£)	Regional cuttings supplier—COI (£)	Total (£)
2009
November	8,678.71	2,591.89	11,270.60
December	7,947.50	3,930.40	11,877.90
2010
January	8,288.44	5,232.73	13,521.17
February	6,558.47	5,847.16	12,405.63
March	7,473.89	4,704.23	12,178.12
April	8,353.12	3,461.07	11,814.19
May	5,510.57	3,041.35	8,551.92
June	5,752.14	3,554.22	9,306.36
July	5,736.30	4,885.50	10,621.80
August	4,364.43	3,303.61	7,668.04
September	1,582.76	3,881.74	5,464.50
October	2,425.16	n/a	2,425.16

In September 2010 the regional cuttings service was cancelled and the national cuttings service moved to an electronic only format with a limited list of recipients. Neither DCLG Ministers nor officials in the Department now receive hard copy press cuttings. Ministers have taken the view that an excessive and unnecessary amount of taxpayers' money was being spent on press cuttings.The Department estimates that the cancellation of the regional cuttings service and streamlining of the national cuttings service will save approximately £16,000 and £19,000 respectively in the remainder of this financial year.The Department does not hold centralised information on press cuttings services conducted for its non-departmental public bodies.

Secondary information

Type

Written question

Reference

25495; 519 c200W

Session

2010-12

Subjects

Press Department for Communities and Local Government Subscriptions

Contains statistics

Yes

Link

View this Written question on www.publications.parliament.uk