DEFRA provides a ‘shared’ IT training service to a number of agencies and the spending of DEFRA will include the spending on IT training by those agencies on a consolidated accounting basis.
IT training for DEFRA can be separated into two distinct areas:
1. Regular spending on IT training for staff. This includes such activities as maintaining hardware and training new staff members in the use of the DEFRA systems. The overall spending on IT during the years 2004-05, 2005-06, 2006-07 and 2007-08 is contained in the ‘Resource Accounts’. The annual reports are available at:
http://www.defra.gov.uk/corporate/finance/resource-accounts
and are in the Library. Providing more specific information on regular IT spend in earlier years can be done only at disproportionate cost.
2. Project spending on IT training for staff. IT projects that will require trained staff will include the cost of that training within their budgets. Information on the costs of training alone or on the costs of IT work between 2004-08 are available only at disproportionate cost.