§ Mr. McNamaraTo ask the President of the Board of Trade what are the costs, in total, to his Department in relation to the contractorisation of the Accounts Service Agency; what is the breakdown of these costs between(a) the annual cost of the CSL Group Holdings Ltd. contract, (b) the annual cost of the contract monitoring unit, (c) the annual cost of the policy work transferred from the ASA to the finance and resource management division, (d) the annual cost of any other department overheads previously borne by the ASA and (e) the cost of the contracting-out process, written off over the contract period in respect of (i) redundancy or early retirement, (ii) solicitors' advice, (iii) consultancy fees and (iv) departmental costs. [15211]
§ Mr. Ian Taylor[holding answer 23 March 1995]: The process of contracting out the services provided by the Accounts Services Agency has yet to be completed. At this stage therefore many of the associated financial details can only be estimated. Estimates for the various elements are:
- a) the annual cost of the contract with CSL Group Ltd. cannot be determined in advance. It will be a volume contract where the price paid will be determined by the level of services demanded. The schedule of rates cannot be revealed because it is commercially confidential;
- b) and c) the policy work to be transferred from ASA to the finance and resource management division of DTI will be undertaken by the accounts services management unit which will also manage the contract. The annual cost of ASMU, including overheads, will be £307,500 falling to £256,500 after the first year;
529 - d) as a result of the contracting out of the Department's overhead attributed to accounts services will fall from £99,000 to £45,000 per annum; and
- e) a breakdown of the costs of the contracting-out process could reveal information of a confidential nature, both commercial and personal. The estimated annualised total cost of the items requested is £163,000.