Departmental Public Expenditure

Grant Shapps
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs pursuant to the answer of 16 March 2009, Official Report, columns 826-27W, on the economic situation, what expenditure was incurred by his Department in relation to (a) the internal conference held in October 2008 and (b) the seminar with delivery bodies held in November 2008, under each budgetary heading.

Huw Irranca-Davies
The total cost of the senior civil service conference in October 2008 was £16,064.76. £6,687.11 was spent on venue hire and catering and £9,377.65 was spent on facilitation of the event. There were no costs incurred for the following workshops.

The seminar with DEFRA delivery bodies on 10 November 2008 was held at the offices of WRAP in Banbury. The only costs to DEFRA were the time and rail travel of seven departmental representatives. Attendees from the other delivery bodies would have incurred similar costs.