Office of Government Commerce

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what estimate he has made of the level of reductions in (a) salary and (b) administration costs made by the Office of Government Commerce in each year since 2003-04; and if he will make a statement. (165223)

The following table shows OGC's total net administration costs and salary cost contained therein for the years 2003-04 to 2006-07. These figures are consistent with the resource accounts for those years.

*£000*
Resource accounts	2003-04	2004-05	2005-06	2006-07
Net administration costs	31,984	34,896	44,271	44,908
Of which:
Salaries	15,403	18,406	23,974	25,585

The OGC's expenditure increased between 2004-05 and 2005-06 due to an expansion of its remit in that period, particularly on improving efficiency across the public sector.

Volume 469: debated on Tuesday 11 December 2007