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This press release was updated on 18/01/2011

³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Monitoring today announced spending cuts and proposed post closures in response to the decision by the Cabinet Office, following last October's HM Government Comprehensive Spending Review, to cut £1.5m per annum in 2011/12 from ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Monitoring's current grant of £23.2m, followed by a further cut in income of £1.5m per annum in 2012/13, taking ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Monitoring's grant to £20.2m. This represents £3m cuts over two years and follows a cut of £1.4m by the Cabinet Office in April 2010.

Announcing the cuts package to staff today, the Director of ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Monitoring, Chris Westcott, said that: "regrettably service cuts and post closures are inevitable given the scale of the cut in funding from the Cabinet Office. We are now beginning a period of consultation with staff on our proposals."

³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Monitoring proposes to meet these cuts to our budget by closing 72 posts – about 16%. 18 new posts would be created.

Notes to Editors

³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Monitoring supplies news, information, and comment gathered from open mass media sources around the world.

Under the terms of the new ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Licence Fee Agreement, ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Monitoring will be funded by the licence fee from FY 13/14. Until then, the Agreement states that "The Government will continue to fund ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Monitoring at CSR-agreed levels for 2011/12 and 2012/13".

Financial Year / Cabinet Office funding £m
2010/11 – £23.2
2011/12 – £21.7
2012/13 – £20.2

It operates around the clock to monitor more than 3,000 radio, TV, press, internet and news agency sources. It then selects vital information; translating it into English from up to 100 languages from 150 countries, and delivering it online for immediacy and ease of access.

This extensive and growing range of sources enables ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Monitoring to provide distinctive, authoritative and reliable information and analysis to its Stakeholders (the Cabinet Office and agencies, the Ministry of Defence, Foreign and Commonwealth Office and ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ World Service) and customers including media organisations, universities, governments, embassies, multinational companies and charities around the world.

³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Press Office