Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, how many officials in (a) his private office and (b) the wider Department have been allocated to the production and promotion of online content for use on social media in (a) 2018-19, (b) 2019-20 and (c) 2020-21.

The Digital Communications Team has included approximately 14 members of staff responsible for producing and promoting social media content between 2018 and 2021. We cannot quantify how many other staff in the wider Communications Directorate or wider department as it’s something that many people do as a smaller part of their role.

The Cabinet Office is continuously tracking and reviewing spending on cross-government campaigns, including Covid-19, to ensure our communications are efficient. We will not spend more than is needed to be effective.

The Cabinet Office publishes expenditure, including on public information campaigns, on a rolling monthly basis on gov.uk as part of routine government transparency arrangements.