§ Mr. RedmondTo ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what contracts his Department and his agencies have with Serco Ltd.; what is the current cost; when each contract ends; what are the penalties involved should he seek early termination of the contract; and if he will make a statement. [26641]
§ Mrs. Angela KnightThe Treasury, Royal Mint, Office of HM Paymaster General, Valuation Office and Office for National Statistics have no contracts with Serco Ltd.
The Inland Revenue has a contract with Serco for administration services at the Inland Revenue offices, Castle Meadow road, Nottingham. This includes typing, secretarial, messenger, porter post room, switchboard, help desk, training/conference room booking services, etcetera. The current cost is £1,123,343.97—February 1995 to January 1996—and the contract ends on the 31 January 1998 with an option to extend to 31 January 2000.
There are no penalties if the contract is terminated early, due to a default in the service, or for a breach of the contract.
If Inland Revenue wishes not to continue with the contract for reasons other than the above, it needs to give six months' notice and would be liable to pay reasonable commitments, liabilities and expenditure which otherwise would be an unavoidable loss to Serco by reason of termination of the contract.
346WHM Customs and Excise estates department has call-off contracts with Serco Ltd. to provide works managers services for their properties in the south-east of England. These contracts cover headquarters properties based in Southend, investigation division properties based in London, all properties covered by south-east England and Anglia collections and a number of, but not all, properties covered by South London and Thames collection.
Due to the call-off nature of the contract and the delegation to regional managers, it is not possible to provide accurate figures as to the total value of supplies made under this contract, but a broad estimate would be a value of £500,000.
The contract for HQ Southend expires on the 31 May 1997; all other contracts listed above expire on 2 April 1998.
There are no penalty clauses for termination of the contract. In addition to usual causes for termination, the client is entitled to terminate the contract by giving not less than 30 days' notice.