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This press release was updated on 18/01/2011

´óÏó´«Ã½ 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 ´óÏó´«Ã½ Monitoring's current grant of £23.2m, followed by a further cut in income of £1.5m per annum in 2012/13, taking ´óÏó´«Ã½ 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 ´óÏó´«Ã½ 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."

´óÏó´«Ã½ Monitoring proposes to meet these cuts to our budget by closing 72 posts – about 16%. 18 new posts would be created.

Notes to Editors

´óÏó´«Ã½ Monitoring supplies news, information, and comment gathered from open mass media sources around the world.

Under the terms of the new ´óÏó´«Ã½ Licence Fee Agreement, ´óÏó´«Ã½ Monitoring will be funded by the licence fee from FY 13/14. Until then, the Agreement states that "The Government will continue to fund ´óÏó´«Ã½ 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 ´óÏó´«Ã½ 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 ´óÏó´«Ã½ World Service) and customers including media organisations, universities, governments, embassies, multinational companies and charities around the world.

´óÏó´«Ã½ Press Office