§ Mr. FishburnTo ask the Secretary of State for the environment what will be the timetable for introducing compulsory competitive tendering for local authority construction-related and corporate services.
§ Mr. Robin SquireWe intend that the first of the construction-related and corporate services in English local authorities will come into the CCT regime from October 1995. From that date work can be carried out by local authorities' own staff only if it has been awarded following competitive tendering. Local authorities will therefore wish to begin seeking tenders for the first services in summer 1994. CCT for all the new services will be in place by the start of 1997–98.
The first corporate service to be the subject of CCT will be legal services. This will be followed in a phased programme by IT services, housing management, finance, personnel, and corporate and administrative services.
CCT will be introduced for all the construction-related services simultaneously—this will include local authorities' engineering, architectural, and property management services which the Government had proposed to be treated as separate activities. Authorities are increasingly integrating these services, and the Government have agreed to bring them together as a single activity under the CCT regime to give authorities maximum flexibiilty and discretion in how they deal with and contract for this work —on either an integrated or a single-discipline basis.
For each new service in the CCT programme, the Government will prescribe the proportion of work which must be market tested. The Government's preliminary proposals are 33 per cent. for legal services and 90 per cent. for construction-related services. The exact figures are now being discussed with local government and others.
Authorities will be required to submit the prescribed percentage of each service to competition before it can be carried out in-house. For legal services, the prescribed percentage will apply immediately from October 1995. For construction-related services, covering the three separate disciplines of engineering, property management and architectural services, authorities will be required to market test a third of the prescribed percentage from October 1995, rising to the full percentage from October 1996.
The Government are still considering the detailed timetable for CCT for housing management. Ministers will make further announcements about this shortly. Separate announcements will also be made about the timetable for authorities in Scotland and Wales.
This announcement will help both local authorities and private sector suppliers of the services to prepare for CCT. The arrangements have been worked out following very helpful discussions with local authority representatives, which are continuing. I am confident that CCT will raise standards and improve value for money in local authorities' professional services, as it has done for construction work and blue collar services.
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