To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families what assessment he has made of the cost effectiveness of advertising commissioned for policy areas within his Department, including relevant campaigns commissioned by its predecessor in the last 12 months. (148512)

In 2006-07, the former Department for Education and Skills spent these amounts on advertising as part of integrated information campaigns:

All of these were evaluated against targets for response (calls to a campaign telephone number or hits on a website). The first three, where the advertising spend was more substantial, were additionally evaluated through independent customer research which tracked the campaign impact against its objectives, measuring levels of customer awareness and exploring shifts in attitude and behaviour among the target audience. Additionally, £0.045 million was spent on an advertising insert targeting the children and young people’s work force, which was not evaluated due to the size of the advertising spend.

All departmental advertising is bought on our behalf by the Central Office of Information (COI), which is able to use its purchasing power to negotiate significant discounts, ensuring that our advertising budgets are cost effective in the amount of media they purchase. In 2005-06; the most recent year in which records are available, COI achieved cost savings for Government clients of 44.1 per cent. against industry benchmarks.

To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families what assessment he has made of the cost effectiveness of advertising commissioned by his Department and the former Department for Education and Skills in areas within his Department’s responsibility in the last 12 months. (148685)

I refer the hon. Member to the answer given on 2 August to parliamentary question 148512.