Written Questions

Northern Ireland Office written question – answered at on 6 January 2015.

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Photo of Chi Onwurah Chi Onwurah Shadow Minister (Cabinet Office)

To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, what estimate she has made of the savings to her Department from the Q&A system in the (a) 12 months and (b) five years since 4 June 2014; what additional ICT systems or improvements to existing systems her Department has introduced or plans to introduce that would not have been feasible without the Q&A system; and what assessment she has made of the extent to which the system has made it easier to answer questions from hon. Members on time.

Photo of Theresa Villiers Theresa Villiers The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland

The electronic Q&A system has removed the requirement to subscribe to the TSO feed for Parliamentary Questions (PQs) resulting in a saving to the Department of £6,504.40 per year.

The reduced paper costs, although relatively small, are also welcome both in environmental and financial terms.

The Northern Ireland Office has not had to introduce, plan to introduce or improve any existing ICT systems.

The Q&A system has allowed the department to answer PQs later in the day than the previous paper-based system, mitigating against the small number of cases where answering close to the deadline was unavoidable. It also allows hon and Rt hon Members to receive their answers instantly once uploaded, and on the electronic platform of their choosing.

One of the benefits of the new system is the possibility for the reporting of the timeliness of answers to Parliamentary Questions to be delivered with greater consistency and accuracy across all answering bodies.

It will be for the Procedure Committee to evaluate the effectiveness of the new system in improving performance when it assesses the evidence following the end of the session.

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