For the supplement, ‘Eliminating Poverty’ a summary of the UK Government's 2006 White Paper on International Development, DFID, through the Central Office of Information (COI), commissioned a separate media buying company to negotiate with The Guardian in order to obtain the best possible rates. There was no written contract between the media company and The Guardian. DFID was billed for the work by COI.
DFID is unable to place the contract for the G8 One Year On Observer supplement, advertorials, and Guardian Unlimited microsite in the Library, as this would be a breach of commercial confidentiality.
The Department for International Development (DFID) has spent the following on sponsoring newspapers or publication supplements and advertorials in the last year for which figures are available, and the topic of each are as follows:
Supplements Cost (inc. VAT) Date Topic Newspaper Supplement in The Guardian £10,714 July 2006 Eliminating World Poverty—a summary of the UK Government’s 2006 White Paper on International Development, setting out an action plan for the next five years. Newspaper supplement in The Observer. This price included putting the information on a microsite on the Guardian Unlimited website; it also included 8,000 for advertorials to promote the supplement in The Guardian. £62,275 June 2006 Reporting the progress made one year after the G8 summit in Gleneagles, with a special focus on Africa and responding to climate change.