§ Mr. MilburnTo ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if he will list the top 10 suppliers of computer equipment to his Department and its agencies in the last five years, indicating the total value of the contracts received.
§ Mr. BurtInformation is not available in the format requested.
When buying computer equipment on this scale, in order to obtain the most competitive prices it is the practice to create a framework contract covering the major suppliers—ICL, IBM and SNI—to span a number of years: for example, a large, long-term contract for regular bulk purchases, rather than separate contracts for the large numbers of individual purchases of equipment.