To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs which websites his Department's staff are blocked from accessing on departmental networked computers. (310054)

The Department has blocked access to:

www.facebook.com

There are also a number of other websites that the Department blocks for reasons of IT security. The security policies informing these IT security decisions are in line with HMG Security Policy Framework (SPF)

http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/spf.aspx

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs 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 websites in each of the last three years; and what budget has been allocated for each such activity in 2009-10. (310212)

DEFRA website costs are as follows:

The costs shown for “Content Provision” are essentially the staff cost for the central team with responsibility for updating and maintaining DEFRA’s websites. An element of their work is “Strategy and Planning”, but the costs of such work cannot be easily separated.

This central team is also responsible for the DEFRA intranet, and the staff costs for the external DEFRA website alone cannot be readily disaggregated.

The costs shown in 2008-09 and 2009-10 under “Design and Build” and “Testing and Evaluation” are the costs for the project to redevelop the DEFRA website. The website was relaunched in September 2009, the first major website redesign since DEFRA came into being in 2001. The total cost of this work, spread over two years, was £181,378.

“Hosting and Infrastructure” of the DEFRA website—as well as a range of IT applications—are provided as part of DEFRA’s overall IT service provision, and the costs of this aspect of website maintenance cannot be readily disaggregated.