The Department for Work and Pensions was formed on 8 June 2001 from parts of the former Department of Social Security, the former Department for Education and Employment and the Employment Service. Information on costs prior to 2002-03 could be obtained only at disproportionate cost.
The Department runs a number of promotional campaigns aimed at increasing awareness of rights and responsibilities. The following table details spend on advertising campaigns run by the Department in each of the last five complete financial years.
Government policies and programmes affect the lives of millions of people and in order for them to work they must be communicated effectively. But that also has to be done with cost efficiency in mind and there are strict rules to ensure value for money on Government advertising.
Departmental advertising costs £000 2006-071 Age Partnership Group 9 Age Positive 40 Targeting benefit fraud 5,418 Reducing customer error 45 The Pension Service core benefit take up 881 Winter fuel payments 343 Child maintenance enforcement 107 Jobcentre Plus promotion to Black and Minority Ethnic audience 687 Job Done 765 Jobseeker's Allowance 50+ Pilot 83 Lone parent 171 2005-061 State pension deferral 300 Images of disability 2 Targeting benefit fraud 4,553 Pension credit 362 Winter fuel payments 918 State second pension 675 Age Partnership group 19 National sector campaign 23 2004-051 Age Positive 29 State pension deferral 115 Disability Discrimination Act 1,992 Targeting benefit fraud 6,017 Direct payment 8,379 Council tax benefit 674 Pension credit 4,388 Winter fuel payments 515 Lone parent leaflet promotion marketing 216 National vacancy campaign 390 IB reforms pilots 106 2003-041 Age positive 70 Second state pension 216 Pension service awareness 906 New Deal 5,678 Disability Discrimination Act 40 Targeting benefit fraud 8,383 Direct payment 11,095 Council tax benefit 556 Pension credit 9,907 Winter fuel payments 625 Jobseekers direct 1,632 IB reforms pilot 113 Jobcentre Plus customer marketing 1,401 National employer campaign 1,158 2002-031 Age positive 706 Future pensioners/informed choice 2,878 Second state pension 489 New Deal for Musicians 33 Disability Discrimination Act 50 Targeting benefit fraud 35 Direct payment 858 Winter fuel payments 627 Inherited serps 646 1 The tables do not include the following as the information is not held centrally and to obtain it would incur disproportionate cost: spend by non-departmental bodies for which the Department is responsible; details of highly localised publicity activity by the Department's customer-facing businesses; recruitment or procurement advertising; Jobcentre Plus publicity during 2002-03 as at that time allocations sat with individual policy teams and within regional budgets.
The information in the tables relates to media buying expenditure only, which forms the bulk of departmental publicity expenditure, but excludes direct mail, public relations, production and other costs. All figures are exclusive of VAT.