I'll post anything interesting I notice on the DCSF spend here. Feel free to add other things in the comments if you like.
Guardian Media Group £1.1m.
Gypsy Media Company £7,500 ("Britain's only media company run by and for Gypsies")
Total paid to firms with "Consultancy" (or similar) in their name £28m. Some of the amounts are eye-watering. Ecotec Research & Consulting are good for £1.4m. Make that £3.2m!!! They seem to have two accounts. Must have been a bloody good report they wrote.
Cap Gemini £44m
Capita £132m
£2,643 for the BBC's Mike Baker.
Children's Workforce Development Council £89m ("exists to improve the lives of children...by ensuring that all people working with them have the best possible training and advice").
School Food Trust £10m
Association of Chief Police Officers £81k
Chetham's School of Music £5.1m. This is an independent school with 290 pupils. That's £17k per pupil.
Hotels £2.5m.
The Book Trust £13m
Common Purpose £13k (well someone was going to ask....)
Connexions £6m
National Academy for Parenting Practitioners £4.7m (works to transform the quality and size of the parenting workforce across England, so that parents can access the help they need to raise their children well).
AEA Technology (That's the Atomic Energy Agency) £135m!!!!
Teachers' TV £8.6m
Congress Centre - Trades Union Congress £21.8m!!! This looks like a bung, does it not? Update: It's probably the Union Learning Fund. Definitely a bung then.
Early Years Development Partnerships. There are two of these - one in Blackpool, one in Middlesborough, both getting about £8m each. Why only two?
The Sorrell Foundation. £740k. Ooh this looks like fun. SF is a charity which does design stuff. It was set up by someone called Sir John Sorrell. Their most recent accounts (for December 2007) have income of £768k, so it's more than likely that they are near-completely funded by the DCSF. So much for charitable status. There is an interesting contingent liability in the accounts: "As at the year end, The Sorrell Foundation was in discussions with HM Revenue & Customs regarding the employment status of certain individuals".
Netmums £481k. What for?
2012 Organising Committee £356k