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Departmental Christmas

Volume 469: debated on Tuesday 11 December 2007

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice how much his Department and its agencies have spent on Christmas (a) cards, (b) parties and (c) decorations in each of the last five years. (171443)

This is the first year that a Ministry of Justice Christmas card has been produced by our print room. To date, 6,000 have been ordered at a cost of 34 pence each, totalling £2,040. These cards are not centrally funded, and business areas will cover the costs of the cards they have ordered from their stationery budgets.

It is not possible to get information for previous years’ spend on Christmas cards as these will have been ordered by each business area separately, and will be recorded in the Department’s accounts under “stationery”.

Christmas parties are not funded by the Department. Staff will contribute to the cost of Christmas parties themselves, contributions will be made by senior staff, or awards will be made through reward and recognition in line with departmental guidelines.

The cost of trees and decorations for the central London HQ buildings is as follows:

2007

Trees—£460.40 plus VAT

Decorations—£325.90 plus VAT

2003-06

Records were not kept for these years, however due to a change in our financial record keeping this information is now documented.

Archway Tower

2006

Trees, decorations and labour—£809.00 plus VAT

2005

Trees, decorations and labour—£966.00 plus VAT

2003-04

Records not kept beyond this date.

Conquest House

No money has been spent on Christmas trees and decorations since 2002.

Chancery Lane

Nil response due to no records kept.

The information for agencies can only be gathered at a disproportionate cost, as each building would order its own trees and decorations.