PARLIAMENTARY WRITTEN QUESTION
Travel (11 December 2014)

Question Asked

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how much his Department has spent on (a) taxis, (b) first class train tickets and (c) business class air travel in each of the last five years.

Asked by:
Lucy Powell (Labour)

Answer

The Department’s travel and expenses policy clearly states that taxis are an expensive form of publicly available transport and should only be considered if their use is cost effective and delivers a business benefit.

Taxis must not be used for journeys of more than five miles unless no other form of public transport is available. Only exceptionally should taxis be used for journeys between the Department’s London offices, or in Leeds when the Leeds Shuttle Bus is unavailable.

The combined total amount spent on taxi travel by all calendar years was £877,542 between 2009 and December 2014 and the total expenditure is comprised of management information through I-Expenses and Business Management System (BMS) as noted from the tables below.

The following table is as taken from I-Expenses:

Year

Taxi Expenditure

2009

£138,332

2010

£122,035

2011

£87,110

2012

£73,213

2013

£54,442

2014

£44,390

Total

£519,522

The following information has been drawn from the Department’s Business Management System (BMS). BMS is a centralised database which was introduced in July 2008. It allows the Department to collect detail on the categorisation, purpose and value of orders and purchases.

Year

Taxi Expenditure

2009

£298,286

2010

£31,688

2011

£5,430

2012

£7,841

2013

£9,550

2014

£5,225

Total

£358,020

The Department’s travel policy states that all rail travel must be standard class regardless of grade unless there is a clear business need to travel first class. First class rail tickets will require senior civil servant approval.

The total amount spent on first class travel by calendar year was £5,570,735 between 2009 and up to December 2014 as noted in the following table.

Year

Total Spend

2009

£3,139,973

2010

£1,967,616

2011

£264,490

2012

£95,727

2013

£58,067

2014

£44,862

Total

£5,570,735

For comparison, equivalent spend on first class trains from 2005 to 2008 was:

Year

Total Spend

2005

£2,935,301

2006

£3,425,383

2007

£3,450,536

2008

£4,469,270

Total

£14,280,490

The Department books the following classes of flights; economy, premium economy, and business class. Economy class is the default booking and an approved business case is required to book business class. If a flight is upgraded free of charge to business class, a business case is not required, although the management information will record a business class flight was taken.

The total amount spent on business class flights by calendar year was £1,090,466 between 2009 and December 2014.

Year

Total Spend

2009

£552,342

2010

£217,674

2011

£161,198

2012

£98,752

2013

£38,050

2014

£22,450

Total

£1,090,466

For comparison, equivalent spend on business class flights from 2005 to 2008 was:

Year

Total Spend

2005

£636,595

2006

£483,724

2007

£491,936

2008

£596,350

Total

£2,208,605


Answered by:
Dr Dan Poulter (Labour)
18 December 2014

Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0.