Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, 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.

A search to identify the proportion and value of the Department’s contracts that have been let or planned to be let and spend on monitoring these contracts would incur a disproportionate cost. Information on the value of all contracts let cannot be provided without further detailed analysis being carried out.

Under this Government’s transparency programme, for all contracts over £10,000 the Department now additionally publishes details of these on Contracts Finder which is available at:

www.gov.uk/contracts-finder

Of the Department’s Executive Agencies, these are:

1. Public Health England (PHE) – Contracts let between £1 million and £3 million since 2010: 6, Contracts let over £3 million since 2010: 10, Contracts planned to be let between £1 million and £3 million: 0. Contracts planned to be let over £3 million: 1.

PHE have only existed since 1 April 2013 and do not maintain records to show the precise amount of time spent monitoring contracts as a range of factors contribute to the actual time spent on this activity.

2. Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency - Contracts let between £1 million and £3 million per year since 2010: 1, Contracts let over £3 million per year since 2010: 3, Contracts planned to be let between £1 million and £3 million per year : 2, Contracts planned to be let over £3 million: 1. The agency does not measure the cost of tendering, implementing and managing its contracts. This task is undertaken by the agency’s Procurement team together with the contracts end users. The procurement team consist of three individuals (Grade 7, Senior Executive Officer and Higher Executive Officer), they have over 300 contracts on record with a total contract value of £160 million.

Of the Department’s Non-Departmental Public Bodies, these are:

3. Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority confirm no information held.

4. Human Tissue Authority confirm no information held.

5. Monitor- Contracts let between £1 million and £3 million since 2010: 11, Contracts let over £3 million since 2010: 2, Contracts planned to be let between £1 million and £3 million: 3. Contracts planned to be let over £3 million: None. Spend on monitoring each contract: average of £16,000 per contract, comprising the cost of the estimated staff time for each contract. Number of officials monitoring each contract: average of 0.2 FTE per contract.

6. National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) confirmed since 2010, it has let 2 contracts worth between £1 million and £3 million and 16 contracts that are over £3 million. In addition, from the present time to nine months from now, NICE plan to let 3 contracts worth between £1 million and £3 million and 2 contracts over £3 million.

NICE does not hold information on how much is spent monitoring each contract. Each contract is assigned to a designated Contract Manager. However, this does not equate to the whole time equivalent of the post as each contract makes up a small part of a much broader role.

7. NHS England - NHS England’s scheme of delegation authorises Area Directors (the budget holders) to negotiate and sign contracts and there is no central contract database. Across England there are tens of thousands of contracts which would need to be reviewed in order to collate the information being requested. Even calculated using the lowest estimates (10,000 contracts each taking one minute to locate and review) we estimate that it would take NHS England 167 hours to compile this information. This would therefore entail a disproportionate cost.

8. Care Quality Commission - Contracts let between £1 million and £3 million since 2010: 23, Contracts let over £3 million since 2010: 5, Contracts planned to be let between £1 million and £3 million: Nil, Contracts planned to be let over £3 million: 2.

9. Health and Social Care information Centre (HSCIC) – confirmed since 2010, it has let 13 contracts worth between £1 million and £3 million and 9 contracts that are over £3 million. HSCIC further plan to let 3 contracts worth between £1 million and £3 million and 4 contracts over £3 million.

These contracts are managed by multidisciplinary teams throughout the organisation, including procurement, finance, technical, estates and project management teams and a full breakdown for each contract is not available. All contracts above are monitored by a team of 17 procurement colleagues costing £655,153 (2013-14 figures). However, this team also oversees a significant number of sub £1m contracts across the organisation.

Note: The contract numbers are from information readily available. HSCIC are currently working to build a more comprehensive contracts database to better and more accurately answer similar queries in the future. These numbers do not include contracts which HSCIC or legacy organisations have/plan to let on behalf of the Department or NHS England.