Departmental Internet

Jenny Willott
To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland how many complaints his Department received regarding difficulties using its website in each of the last three years; and if he will make a statement.

Ann McKechin
We do not hold the information in the format requested. However, there were a small number of complaints regarding teething difficulties experienced when the Scotland Office website was re-designed in 2008-09. These arose as a result of broken links to Scotland Office web pages and the problems were subsequently addressed.

Jenny Willott
To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland how much his Department spent on external website design consultants in each of the last three years; and if he will make a statement.

Ann McKechin
Figures are only available for each year as a total amount spent on web maintenance and include annual hosting fees. These costs represent the hosting, updating and development of the site.

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|Financial year                                                                                                                                                                                |Cost (£)|
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|2007-08                                                                                                                                                                                       |2,990   |
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|2008-09                                                                                                                                                                                       |119,292 |
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|2009-10                                                                                                                                                                                       |3,500   |
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|1 The increase in 2008-09 includes a complete redesign and redevelopment of the website, hosting package for the site and full content management system for in-house staff to manage content.|        |
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