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Departmental Press: Subscriptions

Answer

The Department does not retain spend data relating to press cuttings services for the full period in question.The Department's accounting system records the following expenditure data for the last two complete financial years and expenditure to date in 2010-11 by the Communication Directorate:

Organisation	2008 -09	2009 -10	¹2010-11
Durrants (National press cuttings agency)	159,570	132,300	33,729.48
Precise (formerly EDS) (Regional press cuttings agency)	28,015.04	37,450.78	22,127.49
Total	187,585.04	169,750.78	55,856.97
¹ Spend to date

For information related to spend on press cuttings services in 2005-2008, I refer my hon. Friend to the answer given to my right hon. Friend the right hon. Friend the Member for South West Surrey (Mr Hunt) on 29 October 2008, Official Report, 1138W.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.

Secondary information

Type

Written question

Reference

28156; 520 c178-9W

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