Departmental Electronic Equipment

Mr. Hoban
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development how many (a) BlackBerry devices and (b) mobile telephones have been lost by (i) Ministers, (ii) special advisers and (iii) civil servants in his Department in each year since 2005.

Mr. Michael Foster
Our records show that in the last five years we have had no BlackBerry devices lost and the total number of mobile phones lost was 13. We cannot break this down further as this information is not readily available and cannot be provided without incurring a disproportionate cost.

The total number of mobile phones lost in each of the last five years is as follows:

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|       |Numbers lost|
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|2004-05|3           |
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|2005-06|5           |
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|2006-07|4           |
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|2007-08|1           |
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|2008-09|0           |
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Jenny Willott
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development how many (a) photocopiers, (b) scanning devices and (c) fax machines, excluding multi-function devices, there are in his Department; how many there were in each of the last three years; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. Michael Foster
In the Department for International Development’s two UK offices we have as follows:

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|            |2007|2008|2009|
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|Photocopiers|28  |28  |27  |
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|Scanners    |7   |7   |8   |
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|Fax machines|72  |66  |63  |
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Information on machines held in our overseas offices is not held centrally, and could not be obtained without incurring disproportionate cost.

The number of fax machines has declined in recent years, as we increasingly rely on e-mail. Scanners are mainly used in relation to our electronic document management system.