§ Mr. McAllionTo ask the Secretary of State for Education if he will list all those services or functions that have been contracted out from his Department since November 1991 without market testing an in-house bid against external competition, with, in each instance, the successful contractor and the reasons for the decision to exclude an in-house bid.
§ Mr. BoswellSince November 1991, the Department has contracted out—that is, engaged private sector contractors to undertake work previously done by the Department's staff—without market testing in one area: the professional architectural scrutiny of school building projects. The successful contractor is Hurd Rolland of Berkhamsted; there was no in-house bid because this is a small-scale pilot to test whether external contractors can provide the necessary service satisfactorily.
Since November 1991 the Department has also let contracts as a result of market tests undertaken before that date. Previously in-house costings rather than in-house bids were used to frame value-for-money judgments.