Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what his Department has spent on developing the Sorting Out Separation web app; how many people are actively using that app; what the cost is per user of the app; what assessment he has made of the value for money of the app; and what steps he plans to take to ensure that future online development in this area represents good value for money.

The costs of the Sorting out Separation web app are £417,500 to date. This includes initial build, maintenance and development, hosting, videos and promotion.

Contracts and services for Sorting out Separation have been procured using the online ‘Contracts Finder' and CloudStore (‘G Cloud' framework). Both of these are flexible, low-cost methods of commissioning, which has enabled the Department to maintain a strong focus on value for money from initial development to live running.

As of 31 May 2014 there were 180,000 visitors to Sorting out Separation, which equates to an approximate cost per user of £2.30. We have commissioned work on search engine optimisation to maximise awareness and usage and we anticipate that this will sharply reduce the cost per user in due course.