The Northern Ireland Office has an in-house media monitoring service to meet the needs of Ministers and senior officials within the Department. It also provides its media monitoring services to Ministers and officials in the devolved Administration and a number of external public sector stakeholders.
Equipment costs Media monitoring unit Typing pool 2004-05 14,052.15 70,000 69,000 2005-06 2,397.76 70,200 72,000 2006-07 1,682.14 79,000 79,000 2007-08 6,080.04 69,000 79,000 2008-09 2,957.14 62,000 82,000
Equipment costs are all the costs associated with press monitoring—for example televisions, DVD recorders, DVD discs, tapes, radios and trans-scribers.
The Department recoups a percentage of its running costs by passing on a small charge to its clients.
Currently there are four members of staff employed in the Media Monitoring Unit and a further five typists to transcribe media monitoring requests. Staffing numbers have fluctuated over this period. I have provided the average salary costs for each team.