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Written question asked by Bernard Jenkin (Conservative) on Tuesday, 16 November 2010, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Thursday, 18 November 2010. It was answered by Alistair Burt (Conservative) on Monday, 20 December 2010 on behalf of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

Departmental Press: Subscriptions

Question
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs how much (a) his Department and (b) the non-departmental public bodies for which he is responsible spent on press cuttings services in each of the last 12 months.
Answer

Spend by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) and the British Council on press cutting services for each of the last 12 months is listed in the following table.

£ (Excluding VAT)
FCO British Council
2009
November 13,730 2,443
December 13,307 2,236
2010
January 12,987 2,120
February 11,164 2,766
March 14,674 2,653
April 10,327 2,921
May 10,452 1,855
June 10,819 1,765
July 10,714 1,636
August 9,024 1,813
September 8,479 1,926
October 8,195 1,920

The FCO is also obliged to purchase an annual licence fee from the Newspaper Licensing Agency (NLA) in order to deliver electronic press cuttings. In 2010-11, this cost £70,755 (excluding VAT). The FCO does not pay for this by month but makes an annual payment each year, which runs from 1 April 2010 to 31 March 2010. Prior to 2007, the FCO had a paper cuttings service. When we moved to the more environmentally friendly digital service, the NLA increased its fee as the digital information can now be provided across the whole of the FCO's worldwide network rather than just in the UK.For the period 1 November 2009 to 31 October 2010, the British Council spent £17,251 (excluding VAT) on NLA payments. The FCO's other non-departmental public bodies did not spend anything on press cutting services during this period.

Secondary information

Type
Written question
Reference
25489; 520 c957-8W
Session
2010-12
Subjects
Press Foreign and Commonwealth Office Subscriptions
Contains statistics
Yes
Link
View this Written question on www.publications.parliament.uk