Speaker's Office budget and spending (2023)
Request
1) What is the budget for the Office of the Speaker of the House of Commons for the financial year 2023/2024?
2) [In the financial year 2022-2023] any [Speaker's Office] costs associated with the production, licensing and publication of official photographs
3) [In the financial year 2022-2023] any costs associated with the management of the speaker’s Social media accounts including Twitter and Instagram
4) [In the financial year 2022-2023] any costs associated with any official visits made by the speaker (such as travel, accommodation, food)
Response
1) What is the budget for the Office of the Speaker of the House of Commons for the financial year 2023/2024?
This information is held by the House of Commons. The budget for the Speaker’s Office for the 2023/24 financial year is £1,709,000 in total.
2) [In the financial year 2022-2023] any [Speaker's Office] costs associated with the production, licensing and publication of official photographs
This information is held by the House of Commons. In the 2022/23 financial period, £2,970 in total was spent on the production of official photographs by the Speaker’s Office.
3) [In the financial year 2022-2023] any costs associated with the management of the speaker’s Social media accounts including Twitter and Instagram
This information is not held by the House of Commons. There were no costs associated with the management of Mr Speaker’s social media accounts (including those specified) for the 2022/23 financial period.
4) [In the financial year 2022-2023] any costs associated with any official visits made by the speaker (such as travel, accommodation, food)
This information is held by the House of Commons.
Costs associated with official visits between April 2022 and December 2022 are already available from a public source. This information is exempt from disclosure in accordance with section 21(1) and (2)(a) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA), which removes a public authority from the obligation to provide access to information which is already in the public domain. This is an absolute exemption and the public interest test does not apply.
However, it may help you to know that we regularly publish details and costs of official vists made by Mr Speaker as part of the “Speaker of the House of Commons travel, gifts, and official entertainment registers”, and details of these can be found on the Business pages of our website.
For information regarding the period January 2023 to March 2023, while this information is held by the House of Commons, it is intended for future publication sometime before the end of July, and is therefore exempt in accordance with section 22 FOIA. This is a qualified exemption, and accordingly we have to consider whether the public interest is in withholding the information or in disclosing it. The arguments for and against disclosure are detailed below.
The general argument in favour of releasing information is that there is a public interest in being able to scrutinise aspects of the House of Commons where that information might be easy to access and will not prejudice the House. The argument against disclosure is the public interest in permitting public authorities to publish information in a manner and form and at a time of their own choosing. It is a part of the effective conduct of public affairs that the general publication of information is a conveniently planned and managed activity within the reasonable control of public authorities. Where the decision has been made in principle to publish, there is a reasonable entitlement to make arrangements to do so.
However, it may help you to know that when this information is published, it will be available on webpage linked above.