Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, which contracts worth more than £5 million his Department has signed since 1 September 2014; with whom such contracts have been signed; for what purpose; what the (a) annual and (b) total cost of each such contract is; and what the length of each such contact is.

When buying products and services we always seek best value for taxpayers' money and find savings were possible.

Please refer to Annex A for the answer.

I can confirm that 24 contracts worth more then 5 million have been signed since 1 September 2014.

The Transforming Rehabilitation Programme successfully signed 21 contracts to run probation services for low and medium risk offenders across the whole of England and Wales in December 2014. These services replace the previous delivery of these services to low and medium risk offenders from probation trusts and will now also provide "through the gate" support and services to offenders serving sentences of less than 1 year. The contracts include a payment by results element to reward providers who are successful at reducing reoffending rates.

The contracts are for 7 years with a further 3 year extension option and an exit period available at the discretion of the Authority. The values stated for the Transforming Rehabilitation contracts are estimates based on a 7 year contract term. A range of values is provided indicating the value of the contract with no Payment by Results payable and with all available Payment by Results payable to the suppliers. Actual values are non-indexed and may vary depending on volumes, indexation and demand for services to the National Probation Service.

The Contract Award date is the signed date.