Foreign and Commonwealth Office: Newspaper Press
(asked on 24th July 2019) - View Source
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, how much his Department has spent on purchasing (a) national newspapers and (b) newspaper online subscriptions since 2016; and how many copies of each national newspaper were purchased in that time period.
The Foreign and Commonwealth Office spent a total of £725,286 on newspapers supplied centrally in financial years 2016-17 to 2018-2019 for FCO staff in the United Kingdom and its diplomatic missions overseas. £617,911 of this was spent on online/electronic newspaper subscriptions which are made available digitally to all staff and £29,658 on print copies for use by its departments in London. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office purchases these through pan-government frameworks and contracts and encourages staff to use newspapers digitally wherever possible in order to ensure efficiency savings. The remaining amount of £77,717 was spent locally by overseas diplomatic missions over the three financial years.
| FY 16-17 | FY 17-18 | FY 18-19 |
Total FCO spend on newspapers | £270,820 | £312,394 | £142,072* |
| FY 16-17 | FY 17-18 | FY 18-19 |
Spend on online/electronic newspaper subscriptions provided centrally for access by all FCO staff | £232,527 | £285,118 | £100,266* |
Spend locally by overseas diplomatic missions | £29,813 | £17,213 | £30,693 |
* In this financial year the FCO made adjustments to record spending on annual subscriptions according to the proportion actually spent within the same financial year. In many cases that total spend is now spread over more than one financial year.
Titles and number of daily copies of print national newspapers delivered under contract to FCO London
Newspaper title** | FY 16-17 | FY 17-18 | FY 18-19 |
Daily Express | 3 copies | 2 copies | 1 copy |
Daily Express Sat | 3 copies | 2 copies | 1 copy |
Daily Mail | 4 copies | 5 copies | 8 copies |
Daily Mail Sat | 3 copies | 2 copies | 1 copy |
Daily Mirror | 3 copies | 3 copies | 2 copies |
Daily Mirror Sat | 3 copies | 3 copies | 2 copies |
Daily Telegraph | 9 copies | 12 copies | 10 copies |
Daily Telegraph Sat | 2 copies | 3 copies | 2 copies |
Financial Times | 4 copies | 5 copies | 3 copies |
Financial Times Sat | 3 copies | 3 copies | 2 copies |
Guardian | 7 copies | 6 copies | 10 copies |
Guardian Sat | 3 copies | 2 copies | 2 copies |
i-Newspaper | 3 copies | 3 copies | 2 copies |
Mail on Sunday | 3 copies | 3 copies | 1 copy |
Observer | 3 copies | 2 copies | 2 copies |
Sun | 6 copies | 5 copies | 6 copies |
Sun Sat | 2 copies | 2 copies | 2 copies |
Sunday Express | 2 copies | 2 copies | 2 copies |
Sunday Mirror | 2 copies | 3 copies | 2 copies |
Sunday People | 2 copies | 3 copies | 2 copies |
Sunday Telegraph | 2 copies | 2 copies | 2 copies |
Sunday Times | 3 copies | 5 copies | 2 copies |
Sun on Sunday | 2 copies | 3 copies | 2 copies |
Times | 13 copies | 16 copies | 24 copies |
Times Sat | 3 copies | 5 copies | 4 copies |
**Non-UK national newspaper titles to the value of £28 over the three financial years above have been omitted