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The BBC Trust claims the BBC's websites "offer good value for money" for the licence-fee payers who fund the service.

"In 2007/08, bbc.co.uk's cost per user reached 13.8p, down from 14.2p the previous year," the report claims, based on a weekly audience of 12.4 million adults. However, the report doesn't reveal how many of those weekly visitors are from abroad, and thus don't directly contribute to the site's funding (although BBC sites do serve advertising to foreign visitors).

The BBC's Annual Report states that almost half of the visitors to bbc.co.uk are from outside the UK.

Nevertheless,

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bbc.co.uk consumes only a small proportion of the licence-fee fund, according to the Trust.

"In 2006/07, the BBC spent around 3% of the licence fee on bbc.co.uk, compared to 70% on television channels and 17% on its network, nations and local radio services, yet it is now the BBC's fourth most widely used service," the report states.

"We believe that this level of spending on online content is low, given the increasing importance of online media to the public."

Nevertheless, the Trust says it's putting a freeze on bbc.co.uk spending, after it massively overshot its budget. "The Trust's work revealed that in 2007/8 the actual spend on bbc.co.uk was £110m, 48% higher than the Service Licence baseline budget.

"Most of this increase was not overspend, but the misallocation of £24.9m in overheads and costs to other budgets within the BBC, representing poor financial accountability.

"The Trust has concluded that tighter management controls are necessary for bbc.co.uk and has requested these be implemented to the Trust's satisfaction before it will consider approval of the additional investment for the service as proposed by BBC management," the Trust states.