To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what the total cost of his Department's website was in the last 12 months; and how many hits it received in the same period. [104195]

Core programme cost for the Department for Education and Skills central website in the last 12 months (April 2002 to March 2003) is £1,747,000.There is now wide acceptance amongst professionals in the web industry that hits are not a measure of site performance. So the Department, in line with the Government as a whole, gives more importance to unique visitors and page impressions than hits.Estimated site traffic for the last 12 months is as follows: