§ Mr. WilsonTo ask the President of the Board of Trade (1) how many companies in each of the past five years failed to meet their legal obligations to supply returns to Companies House timeously; and how many of these cases were referred to debt collectors in order to extract penalties;
(2) what process of competitive tendering was engaged in before the Lewis Group was appointed as debt collectors to Companies House; and to what extent payments by Companies House to the Lewis Group are on a commission basis.
§ Mr. Neil Hamilton[holding answer 11 January 1993]: Responsibility for the subject of the questions has been delegated to the chief executive of Companies House executive agency for which my Department is responsible. I have therefore asked Mr. David Durham to arrange for a reply to be given.
Letter from David Durham to Mr. Brian Wilson, dated 6 January 1993:
You recently tabled two Parliamentary Questions to the President of the Board of Trade, asking him: (1) how many companies in each of the past five years failed to meet their legal obligations to supply returns to Companies House timeously; and how many of these cases were referred to debt collectors in order to extract penalties: (2) what process of competitive tendering was engaged before the Lewis Group were appointed as debt collectors to Companies House; and to what extent payments by Companies House to the Lewis Group are on a commission basis. Following the answer given by Mr. Hamilton, I am replying as Chief Executive of Companies House.Companies House is responsible for ensuring that both annual returns and annual accounts are filed within the time limits set out in the Companies Act. Because companies are continually filing throughout the year it is not possible to give figures on how many companies filed late during any particular year. It is possible to give the number of companies who have not filed either their annual returns or annual accounts, or both, on 30 June for the last five years. It is on this date that Companies House' performance against the compliance target set by Ministers is measured.
Both Annual Returns Annual Accounts 30 June 1992 146,000 101,000 80,000 30 June 1991 214,000 138,000 134,000 30 June 1990 187,000 100,000 142,000 30 June 1989 211,000 126,000 154,000 30 June 1988 183,000 103,000 134,000 These companies were not referred to debt collectors as no penalties were charged prior to July 1992.Penalties for the late filing of accounts were introduced on 2 July 1992 and since that date 51,736 penalties have been levied of which 12,023 have been referred to the Lewis Group as official recovery agents for Companies House.A number of firms were invited to tender for assisting Companies House in the collection of late filing penalties 716W revenue. DTI standard procedures were followed in the competitive tendering process and the Lewis Group were finally selected on the basis that having met all the criteria laid down they also offered the best value for money.As you are probably aware it is not customary to reveal payments to individual contractors following a competitive tender procedure on grounds of commercial confidentiality, however, Lewis Group are paid entirely on a commission basis.