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<p>No formal estimate of saving has been done since the Q&A systems inception
earlier this year. The main saving to the Department is in its annual contract for
receiving the daily TSO feed of parliamentary questions at a cost of £5,000 pa. Other
less tangible savings include administrative costs relating to the daily deliver of
questions to the House by departmental staff, photocopying, envelopes etc. These savings
will also apply with the introduction of the new Written Ministerial Statement System.</p><p>The
introduction of the Q&A system has not resulted in any changes to our current
IT systems and it is not envisaged that changes will be made in the future unless
there are upgrades to the Q&A system that allow us to circulate questions within
the department from the system itself.</p><p>One of the benefits of the new system
is the possibility for the reporting of the timeliness of answers to Parliamentary
Questions to be delivered with greater consistency and accuracy across all answering
bodies.</p><p>It will be for the Procedure Committee to evaluate the effectiveness
of the new system in improving performance when it assesses the evidence following
the end of the session.</p><p> </p>
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