North Cabinet minister David Miliband has admitted it costs taxpayers at least £4,500 a year to keep him in daily contact through his political web-blog.

The Environment Secretary and South Shields MP has come under intense fire for his departmental blog, writing about everything from fish stocks to personal carbon allowances to international climate change talks.

However, after pressure from opposition MPs, he has revealed how much it costs taxpayers to keep the show on the road - £300 each month on top of £900 a year in "technical support fees".

The blog is the first of its kind in Government, not least because Mr Miliband personally writes messages about his work, the environmental agenda and his political interests.

Some of his latest postings concern his visit to Kenya for the UN Conference on Climate Change, which hopes to secure global agreement for cuts in carbon emissions, as well as promoting the recent Local Government White Paper.

But following criticism earlier this year that the site was costing taxpayers £40,000 a year to run, Mr Miliband has come clean - estimating it at £300 a month.

A Parliamentary answer from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs revealed yesterday that staff spent only 10 hours a month on the blog "estimated at £300".

"In addition, technical support costs around £900 per year". The costs, they said, were expected to be the same next year.

When the blog - first devised when Mr Miliband was Communities Minister - was moved from the remit of Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, about £2,000 was spent on rebranding and changing to a new server.

But a spokesman for Mr Miliband said the website and online chat room were a great way of communicating directly with people.

"It's obviously a new way for David and the department to communicate not just for him to see what the public are thinking but for the public to see what he is doing, thinking and about how his ideas might have been influenced."

Mr Miliband has accepted privately, however, that his blog will attract as much criticism as praise, with one contributor attacking his claims there was a "cross-party consensus" in North Cumbria over reform of the county and district councils.

"If you looked a bit closer to local people in the district councils I think you would find differing views," John Capstick said.

"We are already seeing creeping back door regionalisation with services such as fire, ambulance and, eventually police being controlled from without the county. If this is the real government policy they should say so."