§ Mr. BradyTo ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what steps were taken by her Department following the suspension of the individual learning account scheme to ensure that services provided to it by Capita plc and its subsidiaries would be provided to an acceptable standard. [74304]
§ Mr. Ivan LewisOfficials continue to take seriously their responsibilities as managers of the Department's contracts, not only with Capita but with all our delivery partners. As soon as we became aware of the issues emerging from Individual Learning Accounts we took immediate steps to ensure that they did not apply to any of the Department's other contracts with any of our delivery partners. We have also taken further steps to ensure that ongoing assessment of the risks associated with delivery of contracted outputs is a standard part of what the Department's contract managers do. A comprehensive and wide ranging Supplier Management Project is seeking to embed that commercial competence across the Department as a whole and is one of our key improvement priorities.