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Departmental Website

Mr. Bercow: To ask the Solicitor-General what the total cost of her Department's website was in real terms in each of the last four years; and how many hits it received in each of those years. [36150]

The Solicitor-General [holding answer 25 February 2002]: My own Department, the Legal Secretariat to the Law Officers, has had a Department website since February 2000. The costs incurred in connection with the Department website since its introductions are as follows:

December 1999 to September 2000

£1,000—Web hosting foundation

February 2000

£255—Housing costs

£1,500—Design and build costs

October 2000 to September 2001

£1,000—Web maintenance

February 2001

£75—Hosting costs

October 2001 to March 2002

£600—Web maintenance

February 2002 to February 2004

£80—Domain name fee

March 2002

£7.50—Domain name hosting fee.

The website has received approximately 20,414 homepage hits since February 2000.

Details of the other Departments for which the Attorney General is responsible are as follows:

Crown Prosecution Service

The costs which have been incurred by the Crown Prosecution since 1998, in connection with its website are as follows:

£625 in 1998–99


£2,394 in 1999–2000


£2,063 in 2000–01, and


£5,721 from April to December 2001.

These figures represent development costs as well as annual maintenance charges. The number of hits the website received in each of the last four years 1998, 1999, 2000 and 2001 were 17,139, 31,152, 37,904 and 36,823 respectively.

Treasury Solicitor's Department

The Office of Government Commerce (OGC) has hosted the Treasury Solicitor's Department website since February 1997 at a maintenance cost of approximately £500 per annum. In October 2001 the maintenance level was upgraded at an additional cost of £1,413.67 to the end

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of 2001. The website was upgraded in 2001 at a cost of £15,552. The annual costs since 1997 have been as follows:

£549.06 in 1997


£534.13 in 1998


£521.54 in 1999


£512.50 in 2000, and


£17,465.97 in 2001.

No records were kept of the number of hits on the website until April 2001. Since 30 April 2001 there have been 43,820 hits.

Serious Fraud Office

Prior to 1999 Serious Fraud Office website costs were subsumed into other CCTA costs and so cannot be identified without disproportionate cost. The Serious Fraud Office website which was in use between 1998 and 2001 was designed at no cost.

The annual costs incurred by the Serious Fraud Office since 1999 are as follows:

£750 in 1999–2000


£585 in 2000–01, and


£32,825 in 2001–02.

The costs indicated relate to charges for amendments to the website rather than design or hosting. The new SFO website activated in August 2001 is considerably more sophisticated and up-datable than the previous website and this is reflected in the increased costs.

Information on hits has been provided by the website administrative staff from the Open Government website, where Serious Fraud Office website hit details were previously displayed. More recent information on the new Serious Fraud Office website has been provided by IDnet, the current website host.

A 'hit' has been interpreted to mean a request for information in the commonly accepted sense. The details of hits provided do not therefore equate with the number of individuals looking at the website.

The annual number of hits received by the Serious Fraud Office website since 1998 are as follows:

4,628 in 1998


15,886 in 1999


58,131 in 2000, and


172,771 in 2001.

Accommodation Costs

Mr. Bercow: To ask the Solicitor-General what the cost was of hotel accommodation for departmental staff working away from home in each of the last four years. [41053]

The Solicitor-General [holding answer 11 March 2002]: In my own Department, the Legal Secretariat to the Law Officers, costs incurred in relation to travel and accommodation form part of the Treasury Solicitor's Department's records. The Treasury Solicitor's Department could not provide information in the form

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requested without incurring disproportionate cost. The total amount spent on travel and accommodation in each of the last four years was as follows:

£56,000 in 1998–99


£58,000 in 1999–2000


£83,000 in 2000–01


£51,000 in 2001–02.

In the Departments for which the Attorney-General is responsible, details are as follows:

Crown Prosecution Service

The records held by the Crown Prosecution Service in relation to hotel costs do not permit the identification of hotel accommodation costs from the overnight subsistence rates paid to CPS staff.

The total cost of hotel accommodation and overnight subsistence payments for Crown Prosecution Service staff working away from home in each of the last four years was as follows:

£306,740.37 in 1997–98


£436,269.76 in 1998–99


£690,934.96 in 1999–2000


£915,051.34 in 2000–01.

Night Subsistence Allowance (NSA) is available to members of staff to cover the costs of overnight absences on official business. The Crown Prosecution Service reimburses the cost of bed and breakfast accommodation, within certain limits, and provides a flat rate personal allowance to cover the cost of meals and incidental travel. An additional allowance is payable to cover telephone calls, newspapers and soft drinks etc. The current accommodation cost limits and personal allowances are:

London, Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds, Liverpool, Newcastle and York—up to £95 per 24 hours bed and breakfast accommodation.


Elsewhere—up to £65 per 24 hours bed and breakfast accommodation.


24 hour meal and incidental travel allowance—£20.


24 hour personal and incidental expenditure allowance—£5.

The CPS also employs a hotel-booking agency through which staff are obliged to make arrangements for overnight accommodation. This provides the Department with discounted hotel rates and management control over accommodation expenditure.

Treasury Solicitor's Department

The Treasury Solicitor's Department could not provide information in the form requested without incurring disproportionate cost. The total amount spent on travel and accommodation by the Treasury Solicitor's Department and its agencies in each of the last four years was as follows:

Treasury Solicitor's Department

£327,000 in 1998–99

£202,000 in 1999–2000

£396,000 in 2000–01

£318,000 in 2001–02

Government Property Lawyers

£10,000 in 1998–99

£37,000 in 1999–2000

£1,000 in 2000–01

£0 in 2001–02

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Crown Prosecution Service Inspectorate

£0 in 1998–99

£0 in 1999–2000

£0 in 2000–01

£130,000 in 2001–02.

The above figures do not distinguish between travel and accommodation, nor between costs incurred in the course of official business and on events such as training courses.

Serious Fraud Office

Serious Fraud Office incurred the following subsistence costs in each of the last four years.

£129,707 in 1997–98


£92,628 in 1998–99


£97,564 in 1999–2000


£158,879 in 2000–01.

SFO staff incur expenditure on hotel and similar accommodation when on official duty, both within the UK and overseas. Costs are incurred in relation to both operational activity and administrative activity (training etc.). Costs incurred and recorded are either based on subsistence rates, actual cost or a mixture of the two but often include the additional cost of food (ie bed and breakfast).

Therefore the above subsistence costs include the cost of hotel accommodation. To derive the actual costs of hotel accommodation in each of the last four years would involve disproportionate cost.

Job Sharing

Mr. Bercow: To ask the Solicitor-General if she will make a statement on the extent of job sharing in her Department. [41045]

The Solicitor-General [holding answer 11 March 2002]: In my Department, the Legal Secretariat to the Law Officers, there are currently no members of staff who job share.

In the Departments for which the Attorney-General is responsible, details are as follows:

Crown Prosecution Service

There are currently 14 members of staff who are job-sharing in the Department: 10 administrators/ caseworkers and four lawyers.

Treasury Solicitor's Department

The Treasury Solicitor's Department strongly encourages job sharing. In the last year there have been four job share partnerships, two of which recently came to an end. Currently there is one legal and one administrative job share partnership in the Department.

Regular meetings are held to encourage those people who wish to work part time, to raise issues common to part timers and to promote the job sharing policy.

On recruitment, the Department will offer a person the opportunity of working part time or job sharing. The normal presumption is that any post can be job shared.

Serious Fraud Office

The Serious Fraud Office offers permanent staff the option to job share; however, at present none of the Department's staff has opted to do so.

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In December 2001 the Serious Fraud Office introduced a range of flexible working arrangements for staff, including the option to job share. The purpose in doing so was (i) to offer staff more family friendly options and thus improve morale and motivation (ii) to improve the recruitment and retention position and (iii) to promote Government policies.

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