{"id":1041,"date":"2013-05-14T11:41:49","date_gmt":"2013-05-14T11:41:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/helpmeinvestigate.com\/education\/?p=1041"},"modified":"2021-10-18T08:25:29","modified_gmt":"2021-10-18T08:25:29","slug":"department-for-education-spent-more-than-1m-on-hotels-last-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/helpmeinvestigate.com\/education\/2013\/05\/department-for-education-spent-more-than-1m-on-hotels-last-year\/","title":{"rendered":"MAPPED: Department for Education spent more than \u00a31m on hotels last year"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"float: right;\" ><a class=\"twitter-share-button\"  data-via=\"\" data-count=\"none\" data-related=\"mohanjith:S H Mohanjith,mattburgess1:Matt Burgess\" data-lang=\"en\" data-url=\"http:\/\/helpmeinvestigate.com\/education\/2013\/05\/department-for-education-spent-more-than-1m-on-hotels-last-year\/\" data-text=\"MAPPED: Department for Education spent more than \u00a31m on hotels last year\" href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/share?via=&#038;count=none&#038;related=mohanjith%3AS%20H%20Mohanjith%2Cmattburgess1%3AMatt%20Burgess&#038;lang=en&#038;url=http%3A%2F%2Fhelpmeinvestigate.com%2Feducation%2F2013%2F05%2Fdepartment-for-education-spent-more-than-1m-on-hotels-last-year%2F&#038;text=MAPPED%3A%20Department%20for%20Education%20spent%20more%20than%20%C2%A31m%20on%20hotels%20last%20year\" >Tweet<\/a><\/span>\n<!-- Code Embed v2.2.1 -->\n<iframe width=\"600\" height=\"400\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"no\" src=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/fusiontables\/embedviz?viz=MAP&amp;q=select+col2+from+1N6XE0KyV0COSLDD17y7-4u5F8Ys5wfJYOjtWHWw&amp;h=false&amp;lat=51.49892904412174&amp;lng=-0.14914139311531294&amp;z=13&amp;t=1&amp;l=col2&amp;y=2&amp;tmplt=2\"><\/iframe>\n<!-- End of Code Embed code -->\n<\/p>\n<h6 style=\"text-align: center;\"><em>MAP: The Department for Education&#8217;s spend across London hotels in 2012\/13.\u00a0<\/em><\/h6>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><strong>The Department for Education spent more than \u00a31m of taxpayers&#8217; money on hotel rooms for staff last year, including at 4* hotels in the heart of London.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">The biggest spend was at the 4* Copthorne Tara Hotel in Kensington where <strong>\u00a3215,240.37 was spent<\/strong> on rooms. A room booked one month in advance can cost \u00a3117 per night. The hotel also offers a gym for guests and those in the &#8220;Club&#8221; rooms are offered free breakfast, internet and bath robes.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p><strong>Conservative MP Priti Patel<\/strong> asked Mr Gove for the amount spent on hotels by his department for the year 2012\/13 in a parliamentary question. The response also revealed the 20 hotels in the UK where the most was spent.<\/p>\n<p>In total 1,464 staff from the department stayed in hotels within the UK last year and 52 officials stayed in hotels outside the UK, with the <strong>cost being \u00a31,004,707.53.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Mr Gove&#8217;s response to the question did not include a breakdown of the cost of staying in hotels abroad.<\/p>\n<h2><span style=\"font-size: 16px;\">Figures from a <\/span><a style=\"font-size: 16px;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.whatdotheyknow.com\/request\/travel_costs_10\">Freedom of Information request show<\/a><span style=\"font-size: 16px;\"> spending on hotels by the department has <\/span><strong style=\"font-size: 16px;\">doubled compared to 2011\/10<\/strong><span style=\"font-size: 16px;\"> when a total of \u00a3419,326 was spent, which included \u00a36,714 on international hotels.<\/span><\/h2>\n<p>However in 2008\/09 the cost of hotels stood at \u00a31,193,461, more than in recent years.<\/p>\n<p>A Department for Education spokesperson said that the hotel cost would be reduced in coming years as it <strong>closes six of its offices<\/strong> around the country.\u00a0The six regional offices which are due to be shut are in: Darlington, Runcorn, Bristol, Guildford, Histon and Nottingham.<\/p>\n<p>Staff who booked hotels in <strong>Doncaster<\/strong> amounted for the 7th highest cost of hotels in the last financial year when they spent \u00a329,222.58 at the Bannatyne Hotel.<\/p>\n<p>Of those hotels where the Department for Education spent the most money last year <strong>13 of the 20 were in London<\/strong> amounting for \u00a3423,893, almost half of the entire spend on hotels in the year.<\/p>\n<p>Staff visiting <a href=\"http:\/\/coventrydata.wordpress.com\/2013\/05\/10\/mapped-department-of-education-officials-spent-156000-on-coventry-hotels\/\"><strong>Coventry<\/strong> spent \u00a3150,000<\/a> on two hotels in the city, including \u00a396,681.18 at the Premier Inn in the city centre and \u00a360,081.11 at the Ramada hotel which is a 10 minute walk from the city&#8217;s train station.<\/p>\n<p>The second highest hotel spend in London was at the <strong>Kensington Close hote<\/strong>l, just round the corner from the Copthorn Tara Hotel, where more than \u00a340,000 was spent.<\/p>\n<p>A spokesperson for the department said: \u201cHotel costs are only incurred when absolutely necessary for officials travelling between the department\u2019s different sites.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We are closing six of our twelve sites over the next five years, saving the taxpayer millions and reducing the need for extra costs such as hotel and travel expenses.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Tweet MAP: The Department for Education&#8217;s spend across London hotels in 2012\/13.\u00a0 The Department for Education spent more than \u00a31m of taxpayers&#8217; money on hotel rooms for staff last year, including at 4* hotels in the heart of London.\u00a0 The &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/helpmeinvestigate.com\/education\/2013\/05\/department-for-education-spent-more-than-1m-on-hotels-last-year\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":88889,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[25],"tags":[563,554,409,44,45,552,560,558,564,172,556,559,561,557,497,555,553,562],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/helpmeinvestigate.com\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1041"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/helpmeinvestigate.com\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/helpmeinvestigate.com\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/helpmeinvestigate.com\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/88889"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/helpmeinvestigate.com\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1041"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"http:\/\/helpmeinvestigate.com\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1041\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1260,"href":"http:\/\/helpmeinvestigate.com\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1041\/revisions\/1260"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/helpmeinvestigate.com\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1041"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/helpmeinvestigate.com\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1041"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/helpmeinvestigate.com\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1041"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}