§ Lord Lyellasked Her Majesty's Government:
What action they propose to take in regard to Leicester City Council under Part I of the Local Government Act 1988.
§ Baroness BlatchMy right honourable friend the Secretary of State for the Environment has today issued a direction under Section 14 of the Local Government Act 1988 requiring Leicester City Council to expose refuse collection work to competitive tendering again by 1st November 1991. He has taken this action because he was not satisfied with the response which Leicester City Council made to the notice served on 11th September 1990 under Section 13 of the Act.
That notice set out the Secretary of State's view that Leicester City Council has acted contrary to the requirement of Section 7(7) of the Act (which is that, in reaching a decision to assign work to its own workforce, an authority must not act in a manner having the effect or intended or likely to have the effect of restricting, distorting or preventing competition) in that, in assessing the cost of accepting a tender from an external contractor, they took account of certain fixed overhead costs.