Asked by: Stewart Hosie (Scottish National Party - Dundee East)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how much her Department has spent on advertisements on each radio station in each of the last five years.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
We do not hold the detailed breakdown of cost on advertising for each radio station due to the way the media inventory is bought from suppliers via our media agency.
Asked by: Stewart Hosie (Scottish National Party - Dundee East)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how much his Department has spent on radio adverts in each of the the last five years broken down by radio station.
Answered by Will Quince
The Department spent £6,755,238 on radio adverts in the last five years. The following table shows the amount of digital and broadcast radio costs in the last five years.
| 2018/19 | 2019/20 | 2020/21 | 2021/22 | 2022/23 |
Broadcast | £248,447.00 | £876,545.00 | £1,124,992.00 | £1,603,870.00 | £1,083,520.00 |
Digital | £104,170.00 | £193,561.00 | £297,731.00 | £682,033.00 | £540,369.00 |
TOTAL | £352,617.00 | £1,070,106.00 | £1,422,723.00 | £2,285,903.00 | £1,623,889.00 |
From 1 October 2021 these costs also include spend for public health campaigns delivered by the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities, previously Public Health England (PHE). Prior to 1 October 2021, PHE was responsible for delivery of some health marketing campaigns. The Department does not hold data for PHE.
Asked by: Stewart Hosie (Scottish National Party - Dundee East)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how much her Department has spent on radio adverts in the last five years broken down by radio station.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Department regularly uses local and national radio as part of the behaviour change and public information campaigns used to deliver manifesto commitments and policy objectives, with the aim of reaching a variety of target audiences across England.
Examples of this include helping the Department to recruit school and college teachers, promoting free childcare to parents and increasing the uptake of skills bootcamps to help adults to gain the skills in demand by businesses.
Radio is a powerful channel to reach a variety of audiences including young people, pupils, parents and businesses. However, the Department’s financial records do not record the breakdown of campaign spend between radio, television, digital or other media channels and so records of spend on individual radio stations are not held.
As set out in previous written parliamentary question responses and freedom of information (FOI) requests, over the previous five years, the Department has spent the following, in total, on campaigns including different types of marketing activity, some of which was radio advertising:
To note: * denotes that this information has already been released in a written parliamentary question response or FOI response.
Asked by: Stewart Hosie (Scottish National Party - Dundee East)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, how much her Department has spent on radio adverts in the last five years broken down by radio station.
Answered by John Whittingdale
The Government runs a number of campaigns across all media channels. The channels selected for government paid marketing campaigns are driven by the target audience. We do not have a breakdown of spend per radio station.
The Department for Culture, Media and Sport has spent £234,820.52 on radio advertising from 2018 - 2023. This includes the following: £197,039.52 spent in 2018 on the GDPR campaign and £37,781 spent in 2020 on the Broadband Upgrade Fund campaign.
This also includes spending on digital and tech campaigns from 2018 - 2023 when the Department was previously the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport and responsible for these sectors.
Asked by: Stewart Hosie (Scottish National Party - Dundee East)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how much her Department has spent on radio adverts in each of the the last five years broken down by radio station.
Answered by Mark Spencer - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Government is strongly supportive of the radio sector and recognises the great value that it offers to communities across the UK. Radio plays an important role in our cross channel strategy, with the merits of its use being assessed in relation to this.
Government public information campaigns utilise a wide range of channels to maximise reach and engagement and to ensure our messaging reaches as many people as possible, including radio. The Government runs a number of campaigns across all media channels. The channels selected for government paid marketing campaigns are driven by the target audience.
Evaluating the effectiveness of Government communications is paramount to its success. Therefore, no matter the form of communication, we constantly and regularly evaluate our campaigns to ensure effectiveness and value for money.
Total spend on radio advertising from the department over the past five years is £284,110.16.
Asked by: Stewart Hosie (Scottish National Party - Dundee East)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, how much his Department has spent on radio adverts in the last five years broken down by radio station.
Answered by Alex Burghart - Parliamentary Secretary (Cabinet Office)
The Government is strongly supportive of the radio sector and recognises the great value that it offers to communities across the UK. Radio plays an important role in our cross channel strategy, with the merits of its use being assessed in relation to this.
Government public information campaigns utilise a wide range of channels to maximise reach and engagement and to ensure our messaging reaches as many people as possible.
The Cabinet Office has spent a total of £58,547,372 on radio advertisement in the last 5 years, covering large scale cross-Government campaigns such as UK Transition, Covid-19 and Help for Households.
Asked by: Stewart Hosie (Scottish National Party - Dundee East)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, how much her Department has spent on radio adverts in each of the the last five years broken down by radio station.
Answered by Paul Scully
The Department for Science, Innovation and Technology was established in February 2023. Since its creation the Department has spent nothing on radio adverts.
Asked by: Stewart Hosie (Scottish National Party - Dundee East)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how much his Department has spent on radio adverts in each of the the last five years broken down by radio station.
Answered by Mims Davies - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Government is strongly supportive of the radio sector and recognises the great value that it offers to communities across the UK. Radio plays an important role in our cross channel strategy, with the merits of its use being assessed in relation to this.
Government public information campaigns utilise a wide range of channels to maximise reach and engagement and to ensure our messaging reaches as many people as possible.
Given the size of the ask - five years of individual spend lines across a large number of radio stations – we have instead provided an aggregate total across all years and campaigns.
Fiscal year | Spend |
2018-2019 | £ 669,000 |
2019-2020 | £ 466,000 |
2020-2021 | £2,700,000 |
2021-2022 | £2,500,000 |
2022-2023 | £1,700,000 |
Asked by: Stewart Hosie (Scottish National Party - Dundee East)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, how much her Department has spent on radio adverts in the last five years broken down by radio station.
Answered by Nigel Huddleston - Financial Secretary (HM Treasury)
The Department for Business and Trade (DBT) was created following the Machinery of Government change announced on 7 February 2023. Previous to the Machinery of Government change, the Department for International Trade spent £2,056,432 in the last 5 years. Since the change, the Department for Business and Trade has spent £214,654.
The Government is strongly supportive of the radio sector and recognises the great value that it offers to communities across the UK. Radio plays an important role in our cross-channel strategy, with the merits of its use being assessed in relation to this.
Evaluating the effectiveness of Government communications is paramount to its success. Therefore, no matter the form of communication, we constantly and regularly evaluate our campaigns to ensure effectiveness and value for money.
Asked by: Stewart Hosie (Scottish National Party - Dundee East)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, how much his Department has spent on radio adverts in each of the the last five years broken down by radio station.
Answered by Dehenna Davison
Details of departmental spending are published on gov.uk and government contracts on Contracts Finder. Spend cannot be broken down by individual radio stations in the time provided.