Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how much and what proportion of his Department's budget was spent on activities which were contracted out in (a) 2009-10, (b) 2010-11, (c) 2011-12, (d) 2012-13 and (e) 2013-14; and how much and what proportion of his Department's budget he expects to be contracted out in 2014-15.

The Department contracts for a wide variety of services to support delivery of its objectives and is committed to providing services in the most efficient way possible to provide the best value for taxpayers.

The Department's central procurement system does not have a separate category nor any central means of consistently identifying spend on activities where they are contracted out for each year. To provide comprehensive spend would mean going back to each business area and Directorate in the Department and consulting on which of the contracts they commissioned are activities considered to be contracted out. This would incur disproportionate costs.

The Department publishes information on newly awarded contracts on Contracts Finder, the government on-line facility for the publication of tendering opportunities and contract information. Contracts Finder may be found at:

http://contractsfinder.businesslink.gov.uk/