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Departmental Computers

Volume 479: debated on Monday 21 July 2008

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice what estimate he has made of (a) the number of computer devices left on overnight in his Department when not in use and (b) the cost per year of leaving computer devices on overnight when not in use in each of the last five years; and if he will make a statement. (217858)

The Ministry of Justice is committed to reducing its carbon emissions under the campaign initiated by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. Most of the Department's IT equipment is switched off over night, as a matter of routine. There are some PCs that have to be left on in order to safeguard overnight data processing on some systems. We are working with our IT suppliers to put in place a technical solution to address this. Meanwhile, staff using these PCs are advised to switch off printers and monitors only.

Within the National Offender Management Service, including Her Majesty's Prison Service, computers that are logged off but left switched on will automatically shutdown.

The cost of electricity consumption associated with specific electronic devices being left on cannot be determined as invoices do not distinguish this expenditure. We will be exploring whether this information could be obtained in the future.