The cost of running the DFES’s website exceeded pound;500,000 for the first time last year. Costs have risen from pound;42,275 in 19978 to pound;640,976 in 20012, according to education minister Ivan Lewis.
He told MP John Bercow that “hits” went down from 173 million in 2000 to 89m in 2001 after the department cut files to speed up download times, but more people were now visiting the site. An average of 1.3m visits per month were made in 2000.