Departmental Public Relations

Mr. Jeremy Browne
To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many external contracts his Department held with public relations companies in each of the last 10 years; and what the total cost of those contracts was.

Mr. Bradshaw
Expenditure outlined as follows is for outsourced public relations from financial years 2001-02 to 2006-07. Information related to contractual values prior to 2001 is held on legacy systems and is therefore not accessible.

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|Financial year|Annual expenditure (£)|Number of contracts let|
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|2001-02       |1,076,400             |14                     |
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|2002-03       |1,320,000             |16                     |
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|2003-04       |1,370,100             |13                     |
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|2004-05       |1,125,700             |16                     |
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|2005-06       |1,005,200             |16                     |
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|2006-07       |1,859,700             |17                     |
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