Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:

To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what the total value of contracts his Department has with private sector providers was in each of the last five years for which records are available.

We have interpreted the question about the value of contracts to mean spend against those contracts by the Department with private sector providers in the each of the last five financial years.

For 2009-10, 2010-11 and 2011-12, we do not hold the information split by private and public sectors.

For the remaining financial years, spend with private sector providers were £131 million in 2012-13 and £134 million in 2013-14.

Spending with our third party suppliers (private and public sectors) has reduced by 53% from £314 million in 2009-10 to £148 million in 2013-14 for the core DCLG Department, delivering a significant saving for taxpayers.