Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, pursuant to the Answers of 8 November to Questions 74851 on Ministry of Justice: Art Works and 74852 on Ministry of Justice: Catering, for what reason his Department does not hold central financial records of artwork or catering at functions.

Departmental spend on art works and catering at functions is infrequent and generally of low value, and as such spend on these matters is not separately recorded. Expenditure on catering at functions is not recorded separately from other catering such as catering in prison establishments. The department does operate spending controls over catering for meetings. They specify that catering should only be provided in exceptional circumstances and require authorisation by a senior civil servant.

Similarly, expenditure on artwork is not separately recorded due to the infrequent nature of any expenditure. In reviewing information in order to reach a conclusion on Question 74851, no spend on artworks had been capitalised in the last five years. It is possible that low values of spend have been made which did not meet the capitalisation threshold of £10,000, but which cannot be individually identified.

As a result, reviewing detailed transactional records to identify expenditure in these areas would incur a disproportionate cost.