To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment what has been the total cost of the press releases issued by his Department since May 1997. [67924]
The cost of printing and distributing press releases since May 1997 is estimated to be £63,460. This allows us at a cost of £70 per press release to get information to over 1,000 national, local and specialist media as well as local education authorities and other educational bodies. Increasing use is being made of electronic communication to reduce costs.
To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment if he will list for each of the years 1990 to 1998 the number of press releases issued by his Department. [67925]
The number of press releases issued for each year from 1990 to 1998 by this department are as follows:
| Year | Number |
| 1990 | 833 |
| 1991 | 852 |
| 1992 | 725 |
| 1993 | 700 |
| 1994 | 564 |
| 1995 | 472 |
| 1996 | 443 |
| 1997 | 447 |
| 1998 | 598 |
To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment what conventions relating to the propriety of Government publicity affect press releases issued by his Department; and if he will set out the conventions relevant to (a) content and (b) cost. [67926]
The conventions relating to the propriety of Government publicity, including press releases, are contained in the report of the Working Group on the Government Information (the "Mountfield Report"). In particular page 25 of Annexe C states:
"The four basic conventions, which successive Governments have applied, are that Government information services:
should be relevant to Government responsibilities;
should be objective and explanatory, not tendentious or polemical;
should not be, or be liable to misrepresentation as being partly political; and
Copies of the Working Group report are available from the Library.should be conducted in an economic and appropriate way, having regard to the need to be able to justify the costs as expenditure of public funds."