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Departmental Travel

Volume 471: debated on Monday 28 January 2008

To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (1) how much her Department spent on travel (a) within and (b) outside the UK for officials in each of the last 10 years; and what percentage of her Department's overall expenditure was spent on such travel in each such year; (181527)

(2) how many overseas visits by officials in her Department took place in each of the last 10 years; which countries were visited; and how much was spent on such visits in each such year.

Communities and Local Government (CLG) and its predecessor the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (ODPM) were created following the machinery of government changes on 5 May 2006 and 29 May 2002, respectively.

The following table sets out the total annual departmental costs of overseas and UK travel and subsistence (for both civil servants and Ministers) for CLG and the former ODPM (excluding the Government offices). Expenditure figures prior to 2002-03 are not available and the detailed breakdown of overseas visits information could be obtained only at disproportionate costs.

The total cost of travel and subsistence represents in each year approximately 2 per cent. of the central Department's overall near cash administration expenditure.

ODPMCLG

2002-03

2003-04

2004-05

2005-06

2006-07

UK travel and subsistence

2,500,200

2,893,167

2,976,065

2,636,968

2,163,827

Overseas travel and subsistence

251,162

241,014

245,360

377,623

104,722

Total

2,751,362

3,134,181

3,221,425

3,014,591

2,268,549