§ Mrs. RocheTo ask the President of the Board of Trade if he will make a statement about his proposals to contract out functions of the official receivers; what functions he proposes to contract-out; how many bids he has received; when contracts will be awarded; how many representations he has received on this subject; and how many of these have been in favour of contracting-out. [5257]
§ Mr. Oppenheim[holding answer 11 December 1995]: No decision to contract-out the case administration work of official receivers has yet been taken; a decision will only be made once the six bids received have been financially and technically evaluated. Contracting-out will proceed only where to do so would represent additional value for money. It is expected that any contracts will he awarded by the end of January 1996.
Since the Government's intention to test the viability of contracting-out was announced on 10 October last year, my Department has received some 232 representations on this matter, the majority of which were from or on behalf of members of Insolvency Service staff and which generally opposed any contracting-out.