Eye prompts questions in the House

It's amazing what you can find on Hansard.

Regular readers may recollect that Eye discovered two videos on YouTube, which were produced by DafT to show press officers how to use a Flip Camera (surely not the most challenging of tasks!).


This from Railway Peer Lord Berkeley on the 29th March...

Lord Berkeley: To ask Her Majesty's Government what was the cost to public funds of the instructional videos that the Department for Transport commissioned on how Flip video camcorders should be used when filming Ministers; whether they will place those videos on the Department for Transport's website; and what other such videos have been commissioned in the past five years.

The Secretary of State for Transport (Lord Adonis): The cost to public funds for the production of the camcorder training video was £767.71.

As it is for internal use, the video will not be placed on the Department for Transport's website. No other camcorder training videos have been commissioned in the past five years.

Lord Berkeley: To ask Her Majesty's Government what measures are in place in the Department for Transport to monitor the effectiveness of staff in their use of Flip video camcorders. [HL3035]

Lord Adonis: As a trial, a total of four small camcorders were acquired in 2009 and issued to selected communications directorate staff for the purposes of producing short films suitable for publicising departmental announcements and events on social media such as YouTube.

Material produced using these small camcorders is edited by the department's social media team and checked for quality and suitability by Communications Directorate senior management.

That's another £767.71 for Captain Deltic's spreadsheet of Departmental savings.