Question to the Attorney General:

To ask the Attorney General, how many contracts put out to tender by the Law Officers' Departments have been (a) cancelled and (b) re-tendered in each year since 2010.

The Government Legal Department (GLD), Attorney General’s Office (AGO) and HM Crown Prosecution Service Inspectorate (HMCPSI) do not specifically record information centrally on those contracts that have been cancelled and retendered, but the procurement team are not aware of any contracts that have been cancelled and re-tendered since 2010.

According to Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) records held centrally, there have been no contracts that have been cancelled and re-tendered since 2010. The CPS is a devolved organisation, however, and it is possible that contracts have been awarded locally and subsequently cancelled. To collate any such contracts would involve checking large numbers of records across a number of CPS offices and would incur disproportionate cost (Code of Practice on Access to Government Information, part 2, clause 9).

The information requested is not collated centrally at the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) and could only be obtained through a manual search of records, which would incur a disproportionate cost.