Public Information

Mr. Gale
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how much was spent on his Department's public relations and information services in each of the last five years for which figures are available.

Mr. Byrne
Information services are defined as websites and phone lines set up for campaigns. The following table shows expenditure on phone lines established for campaigns.

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|£      |
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|       |Police recruitment|Car security|Year of the volunteer|
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|2001-02|241,273|—|—|
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|2002-03|258,962|23,095|—|
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|2003-04|348,236|—|—|
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|2004-05|179,648|—|12,707|
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|2005-06|92,818|—|—|
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To obtain the information regarding websites would incur disproportionate costs.

Public relations are handled by the Department's press office—costs for the last five years are in the following table.

£Financial yearTotal2000-0112,446,2272001-0222,078,7232002-033,009,4892003-042,959,9662004-052,777,5782005-063,113,249 1 2000-01. Expansion of the Home Office press office followed an external consultant's review of its staffing and operation in 1999 and recommended the creation of the Newsdesk to better meet the demands of the 24-hour media. This improved efficiency from 'losing' in excess of 20 per cent. of the calls pre-expansion, to a positive where from June 2003 to June 2004, 91.8 per cent. of 61,070 calls received by the Newsdesk were answered. 2 2001-02. The Home Office press office and the Prison Service press office merged in May 2001.