The information requested falls within the responsibility of the Central Office of Information. I have asked the chief executive to reply.
Letter from Alan Bishop, dated 13 January 2009:
As Chief Executive of the Central Office of Information (COI), I have been asked to reply to your recent Parliamentary Question (250506) asking how many public sector websites with unique URLs are in operation in England.
Although we keep a register of all central government websites, it does not cover the wider public sector. As of end September 2008, Department Website Reviews have identified 1012 websites in operation by central government departments, executive agencies and non-departmental public bodies. This is the total number of websites identified minus the number of closed websites. Some will have multiple URLs, for example to handle misspellings or to guard against misrepresentation.