Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what resources were made available by his Department to the in-house team bidding to continue operating the Defence Fire and Rescue Service during the recent outsourcing process.

As part of the Defence Fire and Rescue Project the Ministry of Defence developed an 'in-house' value for money Benchmark. This was developed by an independent team made up of Civil Service personnel and fire officers who had access to independent consultancy support; this team was separate from the Defence Fire and Rescue Project Team. This work was conducted with the same project requirement as the outsourcing bids and with access to the same information.