Mrs. Laing:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs how many staff in his Department were employed on the management of freedom of information requests submitted to his Department in each year since 2005; and how much his Department spent on the management of such requests in each such year. [299143]
Chris Bryant:
The Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) has 10 staff in its Information Rights Team who are responsible for managing Freedom of Information (FOI) and subject access requests under the FOI and Data Protection Acts respectively. However, a large number of staff in the FCO play a role in answering FOI requests and to find out exactly how many would incur disproportionate cost.
A report prepared for the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) by Frontier Economics Ltd., in October 2006, entitled "Independent Review of the impact of the Freedom of Information Act" estimated a figure of £254 for a central Government body to deal with an initial FOI request. Based on this figure, the FCO spent an estimated £334,010 on initial FOI requests in 2005, £261,620 in 2006, £260,604 in 2007, £258,826 in 2008 and £232,410 to end October in 2009.
Sammy Wilson:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs how much his Department has spent on advertising and publicity in each of the last five years. [294971]
Chris Bryant:
I refer the hon. Member to the reply on advertising given by my noble Friend Baroness Kinnock today (HL5509).
In addition to that reply, consular directorate's publicity team spent the following from their publications budget:
£
2004-05
n/a
2005-06
531,000
2006-07
(1)750,000
2007-08
683,000
2008-09
611,000
(1) Including World cup expense
This expenditure includes the cost of digital media and producing and distributing consular leaflets and booklets.
In 2008-09 our communications directorate spent £859,485 on publicity (strategic campaigns). Figures prior to this are not available, nor are figures for spend at our posts abroad.
Departmental Official Cars
Mr. Heald:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what the cost of provision of Government cars to special advisers in his Department was in the last 12 months. [299588]
Chris Bryant:
No special advisers are provided with an allocated Government car and driver. As with all civil servants, special advisers may use an official car or taxi in properly defined circumstances. Details of such use is not held centrally and could be provided only at disproportionate cost.
Departmental Secondment
Mr. Evans:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs how many civil servants of each grade have been seconded from his Department to (a) the private sector, (b) non-governmental organisations and (c) other organisations in each year since April 2003; and what the (i) dates and (ii) locations of each secondment were. [298711]
Chris Bryant [holding answer 9 November 2009]: The following figures list Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) staff on outward loan or secondment since 2007. The FCO does not have centrally-held records of these appointments before 2007.
These figures do not include FCO staff working for UK Trade and Investment or UK Border Agency (with whom the FCO has joint recruitment arrangements), FCO staff working for other organisations while on special unpaid leave or those working on an informal basis.
