Companies House (Hansard, 19 July 1994)

§ Mr. Heseltine

In October 1992, as part of our policy of reviewing the status and performance of next steps agencies, my Department appointed consultants to look at the options for the future of Companies House. The object of the review was to consider how best to ensure that Companies House continued to build on its record of improvements in efficiency, value for money and standards of service in the future.

The consultants' report described a number of ways in which closer private sector involvement in the activities of Companies House could help those aims. I have now asked them to explore one of them by consulting further with the market on how best to contract out most of the services of Companies House in order to gain the commercial discipline and investment in technology skills of the private sector. Under this option, responsibility for the registrar's functions and ownership of the register would remain with my Department. On the distribution of information, the consultants will consider whether, and if so how far, the new Companies House should withdraw from those activities where it might compete with other parts of the business information industry. The consultants will seek the views of Companies House, its customers and users, and the business information industry.

This work is due to be completed in the early autumn. I will make a further announcement about the future of Companies House in the light of the consultants' findings. In the meantime, however, I am pleased to announce that the fees for incorporating a company and for submitting annual returns to Companies House will be reduced to approximately half their current level. I propose that these reductions should be implemented in respect of those documents due after 1 October 1994. A statutory instrument will be laid before Parliament shortly.

I have set Companies House executive agency the following targets for 1994–95: to make all statutory documents available for public inspection within a maximum of five working days of receipt in Companies House; to ensure that 31 March 1995 a minimum of 90 per cent. of fiche provided to customers are error free; to reduce real unit costs by an average of 5 per cent. in 1994–95; to achieve a 6 per cent. average annual rate of return based on operating surplus expressed as a percentage of average net assets employed at current values; to answer 90 per cent. of incoming telephone calls within six rings (20 seconds); to achieve an overall compliance rate for Companies filing annual returns and accounts of 90 per cent. by 30 June 1994;

and for the remainder of the year to achieve, on average during the period July 1994 to March 1995, a monthly compliance rate for accounts submitted of 94 per cent. and for annual returns submitted of 91 per cent.

In addition, I expect the chief executive of the agency to continue to reply within 10 working days to all letters from Members of Parliament delegated to him for reply.