§ Mr. Carter-Jonesasked the Secretary of State for Social Services how often in the past three years his Department's technical officers have visited Beard 189W Brothers, T. Clark & Partners and Central garage; and whether the speed and effectiveness of their wheelchair repair services was examined as well as the technical competence of completed repairs.
§ Mr. NewtonThe Department's technical officers have, in the past three years, visited Beard Brothers (at two sites) on about 280 days and T. Clark and Partners on about 200 days. The only repairer under the name Central Garage which offers a wheelchair repair service has been visited on about 50 days in the period; another repairer with the same name deals with vehicles only.
The purpose of the visits by technical officers is to check up on the technical standard and quality of the work performed on vehicles and wheelchairs supplied through the Department. Non-technical factors such as the speed of the service are not routinely monitored in the course of these visits but technical officers will investigate problems such as delays at the request of artificial limb and appliance centre managers.