Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:

To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, pursuant to his Department’s tender for the provision of external assurance reviews of local authorities, notice reference 2022/S 000-024515, published on 1 September 2022, what the cost to the public purse of that contract has been as of 10 November 2023.

The contract referenced provides for the provision of external assurance reviews of local authorities in support of DLUHC's role as steward of the local government sector and Local Government Accountability Framework. Since the contract award, it has been used to deliver reviews where councils have sought Exceptional Financial Support (EFS) from Government or engaged with the Department where there may be evidence of significant local financial risks. The Government has been transparent about the outcome of reviews and, for example, published previous reviews linked to EFS requests on gov.uk.

The referenced number of reviews, a minimum of six and maximum of 32, as per the referenced document CPD4124050 was an anticipated requirement to enable prospective bidders to submit a bid in the absence of being able to provide an exact figure due to the demand led nature of the work.

The contract award notice is published here. Spend against the contract is published here as part of normal Departmental transparency requirements.