§ Mr. James HillTo ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he has yet considered the response by Southampton city council to the notice served on the authority on 24 January under section 13 of the Local Government Act 1988; and if he will make a statement.
§ Mr. BaldryMy right hon. Friend has carefully considered the response of Southampton city council to the notice served on the authority on 24 January in respect of the award of an arboricultural contract to its own direct labour organisation. He accepts that the council may not have intended to act anti-competitively, but takes the view that the council's actions were likely to have the effect of restricting or distorting competition and in the event did have that effect. Consequently, he has today given the authority a direction under section 14 of the Local Government Act 1988.
The direction requires the council to re-tender the relevant contract so that new arrangements are in place by 1 October 1995, and to seek my right hon. Friend's consent should it wish to reassign the work to the in-house team.
The authority restricted competition in that it refused to provide sufficiently detailed work force information to enable tenderers to prepare a bid under the provisions of the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations. They also failed to allow those tenderers who had not included TUPE provisions in their original bid, to revise their bids in the light of the authority's assessment of whether TUPE applied.
The Government will continue to act against councils behaving anti-competitively. We are determined to ensure that obstacles which stand in the way of full and fair competition are removed, so that taxpayers continue to get value for money for quality services.