To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how much has been spent on (a) strategy and planning, (b) design and build, (c) hosting and infrastructure, (d) content provision and (e) testing and evaluation for his Department’s website in each of the last three years; and what budget has been allocated for each such activity in 2009-10. (310214)

A review of my Department’s website was conducted during the 2006-07 financial year to optimise the site and improve performance and download speeds. This review cost £15,677. In the next two financial years, the Department spent £4,308 and £4,227 respectively on hosting and infrastructure. No other costs were incurred. The total budget allocated for the next financial year is £5,000.

To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland which websites his Department’s staff are blocked from accessing from departmental networked computers. (310245)

The Northern Ireland Office (NIO) runs software to block all categories of websites which do not conform with the NIO Internet Acceptable Usage Policy or would be considered a network security risk. It is not possible to produce a list of the websites as they run into millions globally and come and go every day.