Page 1522 - Week 04 - Thursday, 26 March 2009

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Public service—travel
(Question No 75)

Mr Doszpot asked the Minister for Education and Training, upon notice, on 12 February 2009:

(1) How much did the Department of Education and Training (DET) spend on travel including itemised amounts for airfares, accommodation and travel allowance for the 2007-08 financial year.

(2) What proportion of travel was domestic as opposed to international.

(3) Did any officers from DET undertake international travel during the period listed in part (1); if so, what was the purpose of the trip and how much did each trip cost.

(4) What proportion of airfares were for business or first class travel as opposed to economy.

(5) What proportion of trips were on Qantas as opposed to Virgin Blue and other airlines.

(6) Does DET have a scheme where frequent flyer points accrued on departmental travel are used to help meet the costs of future travel; if so, what is the level of participation.

Mr Barr: The answer to the member’s question is as follows:

(1) In 2007-08 the Department of Education and Training spent $443 000 on travel including airfares, accommodation, taxi fares, parking and allowances. Of this amount $298 000 was spent on airfares.

(2) Of all flights taken in 2007-08, 459 were domestic and 11 were international.

(3) Six international trips were undertaken by 11 departmental officers in 2007-08. The purpose and cost of airfares for each trip are detailed below:

1. Teacher Exchange to Nara - $2761.11 (one officer);

2. Attend Asia Education Foundation Conference -$445.84 (one officer);

3. Attend annual Meeting of the American Education Research Association - $11 693.56 (one officer)

4. Marketing International Education –

The total cost of airfares for these trips was $38 447.99. Details of additional costs for individual parts of travel (e.g. taxi fares, accommodation, meals) are not available as the departmental accounts do not enable trips to be separately costed. The cost of extracting this data manually would require significant departmental resources.

(4) In 2007-08 there was 1 business class flight taken by a DET staff member and no first class flights. This equates to 0.2% of all flights.

(5) Of all flights taken in 2007-08, 84% were QANTAS and 16% were Virgin Blue.

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