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Written question asked by Robert Halfon (Conservative) on Monday, 29 November 2010, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Wednesday, 1 December 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 his Department spent on press cuttings services in each year since 1997.
Answer

Spend by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) on press cutting services for the last seven years is listed in the following table.

£
Press cutting services Newspaper Licensing Agency
April 2004 to March 2005 288,943 1,905
April 2005 to March 2006 270,011 1,880
April 2006 to March 2007 314,049 2,044
April 2007 to March 2008 350,658 6,176
April 2008 to March 2009 257,338 28,243
April 2009 to March 2010 213,925 71,822
April 2010 to October 2010 68,012 70,755

We cannot separate costs prior to 2004 without incurring disproportionate costs. The FCO is also obliged to purchase an annual licence fee from the Newspaper Licensing Agency (NLA) in order to deliver electronic press cuttings. 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.

Secondary information

Type
Written question
Reference
28142; 520 c958-9W
Session
2010-12
Subjects
Press Foreign and Commonwealth Office Subscriptions
Contains statistics
Yes
Link
View this Written question on www.publications.parliament.uk