To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families how much his Department has spent on the expenses of (a) Ministers and (b) civil servants in each of the last three years. (240635)

Details of expenses incurred by Ministers and civil servants in the Department for Children, Schools and Families in the last three financial years are set out as follows:

Travel and subsistence (reimbursable expenses) is claimed via the Department’s integrated financial information system and is recorded under the general heading of ‘Subsistence’. Ministers’ expenses are not brigaded separately on the Department’s accounting system and are included in the aforementioned totals.

The Department for Children, Schools and Families was created on 28 June 2007 as a result of a machinery of government change and the aforementioned expenditure recorded includes that of its predecessor Department, the Department for Education and Skills.

All expenditure is made in accordance with published departmental guidance on financial procedures and propriety, based on principles set out in “Government Accounting”. All travel undertaken by DCSF civil servants is undertaken in accordance with the requirements of the “Civil Service Management Code”.