To ask the Minister of State, Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform what the cost of running the (a) CompeteFor website and (b) supply2.gov website was in each of the last three years; how many unique visitors each site received in each of those years; and if he will make a statement. (253638)

The running costs for CompeteFor are as follows:

Year 1 (December 2007 to March 2008) £220,000

Year 2 (April 2008 to March 09) projected at £1,241,000

The CompeteFor site has had 54,000 businesses register since launch in January 2008.

Supply2.Gov.uk is operated under a concession type contract whereby the supplier carries all of the commercial risk. Initial set up costs totalling £120,000 were borne by the Department of Trade and Industry in 2006. In 2008-09 BERR funded the provision of a free trial for businesses which ran between 1 May and 31 July 2008, at a cost of £110,310 (ex VAT). No other payments have been made in relation to the portal.

The breakdown of supplier registrations into financial year is as follows:

Year 1 (Launch to March 2007) - 43,050

Year 2 (April 2007 - March 2008) - 31,256

Year 3 (April 2008 - Jan 2009) - 50,872

Total registrants since launch to the end of January 2009 was 125,178.