Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, how much the Department spent on communications staff in (a) 2019-20, (b) 2020-21 and (c) 2021-22.

Expenditure (pay costs) on communications staffing was £1,904,000 in 2019-20, £2,489,000 in 2020-21 and £2,788,000 in 2021-22. This increase reflects changes the Department has made to pay band minimums and specialist communication allowances over the three year period, whilst the communication function in the department has reduced from 4% to 2% as a proportion of the departmental FTE headcount as DCMS' responsibilities have increased significantly.