To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how much his Department has spent on the Pension Education Fund since the initial 26 contracts were awarded; what the duration of each of these contracts was; how much he estimates his Department will allocate to the Fund in each of the next 10 years; and how much was spent on the Fund in each year since its inception. (189831)

The total spend on the Pensions Education Fund to 31 January 2008 is £4.5 million.

The duration of each of the contracts is shown in the following table:

The Fund was established as an exploratory time bound initiative to develop and test innovative approaches to ensuring individuals, particularly those who are at risk of under saving, have impartial and accurate information on pensions and retirement planning to make an informed choice about the retirement income they want and how they can achieve it. The Fund has been independently evaluated and a report will be published in spring of this year. The lessons learnt and evaluation findings will form part of the evidence base underpinning the development of the information strategy for pensions reform and the introduction of automatic enrolment and personal accounts from 2012.

The spending in each financial year since the start of the Fund in January 2006 is shown in the following table: