Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, which websites that are wholly or partly under the control of his Department or used to deliver services under contract to the Government and are (a) managed directly by his Department, (b) managed for his Department by other arms of Government and or (c) managed under contract by private companies or other non-governmental organizations have been available during school hours for (i) 99.9 per cent of the time or more, (ii) 99.0 to 99.9 per cent of the time, (c) 98.0 to 98.9 per cent of the time, (d) 97.0 to 97.9 per cent of the time and (e) less than 97.0 per cent of the time in each of the last twelve months; and if he will publish full details of his Department's web service availability.
The department manages more than 400 services and transactions used by the education and care sector, as well as supporting internal departmental operations.
The department is responsible for the standard and availability of these services. This includes formalising obligations commercially where services are outsourced.
Over the last twelve months, the department’s service availability average across monitored services was 99.96%. Its service commitment targets, all of which encompass school hours, range from a minimum standard of 98% Monday to Friday (08:00 to 17:00), up to 99.95% 24 hours per day, 7 days a week, dependent on the service.
Government departments are required to publish a standard set of performance metrics on their live services as part of the Service Standard. Service availability is not required. The department has no plans to publish availability data at present.