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19 Oct 2007 : Column 1366W—continued


Sports: Betting

Mr. Hunt: To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport what meetings his Department has had with representatives from sporting national governing bodies on betting in sport in the last three years; and on what dates these meetings took place. [158830]

Mr. Sutcliffe [holding answer 17 October 2007]: I met national sports governing bodies primarily to discuss betting on sports on the following dates:

There were round table meetings between my Department and the governing bodies of five sports (football, cricket, rugby union, rugby league and tennis) on 18 April 2006, 6 November 2006 and 15 June 2007, at which the issue of betting on sport was also raised.

In addition, there have been numerous meetings between Ministers or officials of my Department and sports where sports betting was one item on a larger agenda.

Mr. Hunt: To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport what meetings his Department has had with representatives of the betting industry on betting in sport in the last three years; and on what dates such meetings took place. [158831]


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Mr. Sutcliffe [holding answer 17 October 2007]: I met the chief executive of Ladbrokes to discuss sports betting on 28 March 2007, and met representatives of the Association of British Bookmakers for the same reason on 13 June 2007.

In addition, there have been numerous meetings between Ministers or officials of my Department and betting organisations where sports betting was one item on a larger agenda.

Tourism

Mr. Hunt: To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport what meetings (a) Ministers and (b) officials from his Department have had with representatives of the tourism industry in the last six months. [155756]

Margaret Hodge: DCMS Ministers and officials have held a full programme of meetings with the tourism industry since April 2007, reflecting the importance of the sector within the Department.

This has included meetings with individual companies and representative bodies in the private sector; and with VisitBritain, the Regional Development Agencies, and other representatives of the public sector in tourism.

With my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, I have also twice met representatives of the sector in the Tourism Industry Emergency Response Group.

VisitBritain: Cooperation

Mr. Ellwood: To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport what plans there are to review the relationship between VisitBritain and Enjoy England; and if he will make a statement. [157971]

Margaret Hodge [holding answer 15 October 2007]: Changes have recently been made to the relationship between the England Marketing Advisory Board and VisitBritain.

The board, which advises VisitBritain on its domestic marketing work has been re-named VisitEngland. In future, it will take a more active role in the tourism marketing of England, and will be responsible for VisitBritain’s domestic remit. The VisitEngland Board will also be made more representative of the domestic tourism sector.

These changes have been fully discussed with the tourism industry, and the public sector organisations
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which support it, through bodies coming together and working together in a series of seminars organised by the Partners for England. VisitEngland will now work with Partners for England to re-invigorate, as well as better co-ordinate, English public sector tourism support.

The changes have the full support of DCMS, as I was very pleased to demonstrate by attending the VisitEngland launch event in York on 10 October.

Work and Pensions

Council Tax Benefits: Pensioners

Mr. Pickles: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what the take-up rate of council tax benefit amongst pensioners was in (a) 1996-97 and (b) the most recent year for which figures are available. [158181]

Mr. Plaskitt: Estimates of take-up for 1996-97 can be found in “Income Related Benefits Estimates of Take-up in 1997-98”. Estimates of take-up in 2005-06, the most recent year for which figures are available, can be found in “Income Related Benefits Estimates of Take-up in 2005-06”. Copies of these reports are available in the Library.

Methodological changes introduced since 1997-98 were not applied to estimates for 1996-97, so any changes over time should be treated with caution.

Departments: Internet

Norman Baker: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many websites his Department operates; how many it operated at 1 January 2005; and what the estimated annual cost has been of running his Department's websites in the last five years. [157869]

Mr. Mike O'Brien: The Department of Work and Pensions currently operates 21 websites. On 1 January 2005, the Department operated 25 websites.

Production, management and maintenance of DWP websites is carried out by the Department's own in-house E-Communications team. It is not possible to quantify internal costs for each site.

Contracted and quantifiable costs have been included where possible—these include payments to suppliers for services such as research, user testing and site builds, and payment to interim personnel.

Table A lists those websites operated by Department for Work and Pensions where the Department is responsible for the content.


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Table A
£
Contracted and quantifiable costs
Website name and address 2002-03 2003-04 2004-05 2005-06 2006-07

Department for Work and Pensions—www.dwp.gov.uk

0

0

101,467

1,954

8,116

Jobcentre Plus—www.jobcentreplus.gov.uk

17,183,000

The Pension Service—www.thepensionservice.gov.uk

188,093

186,950

0

182,000

0

Child Support Agency—www.csa.gov.uk

0

31,000

0

Age Positive—www.agepositive.gov.uk

0

0

Benefit Fraud Inspectorate—www.bfi.gov.uk

0

Office for Disability Issues—www.officefordisability.gov.uk

46,000

European Social Fund—www.esf.gov.uk

0

41,000

0

Rent Service—www.therentservice.gov.uk

Totals

188,093

186,950

101,467

17,438,954

54,116

— = Figures are not available.
Note:
The figure for the financial year 2005/06 includes the cost of hosting, supporting, maintaining and developing the Jobcentre Plus website and its transactional services. It would incur disproportionate cost to obtain figures for previous financial years and more complete information for 2006-07.

Table B lists those websites operated by the Department for Work and Pensions where the Department is not responsible for the content.

Table B
£
Contracted and quantifiable costs
Website name and address 2002-03 2003-04 2004-05 2005-06 2006-07

Disability Employment Advisory Committee—www.deac.org.uk

0

Disability Living Allowance Advisory Board—www.dlaab.org.uk

0

Employer Task Force—www.employertaskforce.org.uk

n/a

n/a

n/a

0

Ethnic Minority Employment Task Force—www.emetaskforce.gov.uk

0

Images of Disability—www.imagesofdisability.gov.uk

n/a

n/a

n/a

0

Independent Case Examiner—www.ind-case-exam.org.uk

0

Industrial Injuries Advisory Council—www.iiac.org.uk

0

National Employment Panel—www.nationalemploymentpanel.gov.uk

0

Pensions At Work—www.pensionsatwork.gov.uk

n/a

n/a

0

Pensions Commission—www.pensionscommission.org.uk

n/a

0

Fair Cities—www.faircities.net

n/a

n/a

n/a

n/a

0

Social Security Advisory Committee—www.ssac.org.uk

0

Total

0

— = Figures are not available
n/a = Site yet to be launched.

Norman Baker: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many hits the (a) most and (b) least popular website run by his Department has received since 1st January 2007. [157870]

Mr. Mike O'Brien: The visitor statistics for the most popular and least popular websites run by the Department for Work and Pensions during the period 1 January to 31 August 2007 are as follows:

Website Visitors Unique visitors

(a) Jobcentre Plus

www.jobcentreplus.gov.uk

80,014,136

(1)35,295,624

(2)19,337,955

(b) Disability Employment Advisory Committee

www.deac.org.uk

8,509

2,246

(1 )By IP address
(2) By page tagging
Notes:
1. Hits—This statistic is not used because it is not a reliable measure of how many pages are being looked at. It does not provide information about how many people visit the site.
2. Visits—Number of times a visitor or visitors came to the site. Each visit is recorded separately for every visit more than 30 minutes apart.
3. Unique visitors—Individuals who visited the site during the report period. If someone visits more than once, they are counted only the first time they visit. For Jobcentre Plus, unique visitors are counted in two different ways, and both measures are included here for consistency with other PQs.

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