To ask the Secretary of State for Education what proportion of his Department's overall procurement spend for each of the last three financial years was spent (a) in joint procurement exercises with other departments and (b) shared between different organisations within the same department group.

The information requested is not held centrally and could be provided only at disproportionate cost. However, for the 2012-13 financial year, the Department for Education holds information on the aggregate value of contracts that have been called off from Crown Commercial Service framework agreements, which are negotiated on behalf of all Government Departments. For year ending March 2013 the value of spend through Crown Commercial Service framework agreements was £63.42 million.

For the financial year 2012-13, savings for the taxpayer achieved by using the Government's bulk-buying power and pooling spend on goods and services used by different Government Departments totalled £1 billion.