Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, how many contracts (a) his Department and (b) its agencies and non-departmental public bodies (i) have let and (ii) plan to let that are worth (A) between £1 million and £3 million and (B) over £3 million since 2010; how much his Department has spent on monitoring each such contract; and how many officials in his Department monitor each contract.

The number of contracts worth more than £1 million awarded by the Ministry of Defence (MOD), its Trading Funds and non-executive departmental public bodies since 1 April 2010 is shown in the table below:

£1-3 million Over £3 million

MOD 888 1,089

Defence Science

& Technology Laboratory 62 42

UK Hydrographic Office 8 8

Defence Support Group 10 2

Non-Departmental

Public Bodies 11 6

Total 979 1,147

A breakdown of contracts that the MOD anticipates awarding within those value parameters is not held, but the Defence Equipment Plan 2013 gives details of our plans to spend around £164 billion over the next ten years on new equipment, data systems and equipment support. The Equipment Plan is available on the gov.uk website: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-defence-equipment-plan-2013.

Monitoring of a contractor’s performance against contractual outputs is standard practice against all contracts and the MOD has robust project performance monitoring processes in place. Many staff have a role in monitoring contracts, including commercial officers, Project Team and finance staff, so comprehensive information on how much the MOD has spent on monitoring each contract and the number of officials involved is not held centrally. Nevertheless, there are around 1,300 staff in the commercial function across the MOD and its Trading Funds whose specific role is to manage negotiations and contracts with suppliers although this is undertaken as part of wider multidisciplinary teams that include other specialists in areas such as project management, engineering, finance and logistics.