Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how many flights were undertaken by his Department's officials at a cost to the public purse during the last six months; what the cost of those flights was; and what the reasons for those flights were.
The central Department made a total of 1,409 bookings for flights at a cost of £806,711, for the 6 month period from 01/09/16 to 28/02/2017.
1,144 bookings were made using the Department’s internal ‘Clarity’ system at a cost of £722,973. The table at Annex A (attached) summarises the reasons for those bookings.
The remaining 265 bookings costing £83,738 were made through either the Department’s Travel & Subsistence system or using Government Procurement Cards. These bookings were made to undertake official Departmental business.
Please note that due to the configuration of DfT’s systems, several assumptions were made in order to answer these questions: