Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many times his Department issued letters of concern to Carillion on its delivery of contracts for prison maintenance in (a) 2016 and (b) 2017.

Formal concerns about issues with the delivery of the contract were are issued through the Early Warning Notice and Defect provisions as laid out in the NEC3 standard form of contract which is employed for prison maintenance. A formal letter of concern was issued in 2016 to advise Carillion of performance failures. A performance action plan was put in place to address these failings and some improvements were made. This process was subsequently subsumed into a wider service improvement initiative.