§ Mr. Llew SmithTo ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will make a statement on the loss of invoices by the Compulsory Competitive Tendering Agency that was discovered after the transfer of responsibility to the Cabinet Office.
§ Mr. NelsonIn 1984–85 CCTA introduced charges to cover part of the cost of the work which it carried out on behalf of other Departments. The coverage of these charges was subsequently extended by the agency until full cost recovery for all services provided directly to Departments was introduced on 1 April 1992. It came to light in 1991–92 that invoices to other Departments totalling just over £1 million relating to the period 1984–85 to 1989–90 remained uncleared. Attempts were made to link these to payments received, but this was not possible because of changes to the billing arrangements and accounting procedures.
Since the invoices related to transactions between Departments and no funds have been lost to the Exchequer, the Cabinet Office decided that the outstanding invoices should be written off. The same treatment would have been required had responsibility for CCTA remained with the Treasury.