Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:

To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what amount his Department and its agencies spent on research and development in each year since 2010-11; and what proportion such spending was of total departmental spending.

This Government has put in place greater scrutiny and challenge of newly commissioned research programmes to deliver better value for money; we have intentionally sought to cut wasteful spending and unnecessary programmes.

Indeed, the last Administration spent £25.6 million on research projects that were commissioned but not published before May 2010, and many of those projects did not represent value for money for taxpayers – as evident by the fact that many were unpublished for years.

The table below shows expenditure by my Department on research and development:

(Figures prepared on an accruals basis)

Figures on the total spending of the Department can be found in our published accounts.

The DCLG Group (i.e. the Department and its agencies) is making a real terms reduction in its annual running costs by around 40% over the period 2010-11 to 2014-15. This equates to net savings of over £640 million over this spending review period.

It has not been possible to collate detailed figures from our Arms Length Bodies in the time before prorogation.