Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, with reference to his Department’s news story of 5 November 2019, Approved Enforcement Agency Services Contract Awarded, what assessment he has made of the effect of the covid-19 outbreak on (a) the financial viability of the successful contractors and (b) their ability to deliver the contract in line with their original bids.

a) The Approved Enforcement Agency (AEA) contracts were due to commence on the 1^st June 2020. MOJ has delayed service commencement from 1^st June 2020 to 1^st September 2020, this decision was in part to support the financial position of incoming providers as well as ensuring readiness for service commencement, taking into consideration the restrictions placed upon enforcement by the statutory instrument.

A robust assessment of the incoming service providers’ financial standing was performed as part of the open tender that took place for the AEA contracts. This is recent and comprehensive assessment of the service providers’ financial positioning.

The MOJ has an established contractual relationship with the incoming service providers. There has been regular engagement with service providers from the point of contract award at the beginning of the year. From the onset of Covid-19, engagement has continued to understand and assess the operational and financial impact and whether service providers were likely to seek any contractual relief to support long term service provision. These discussions are ongoing.

The contracts obligate the service providers to notify the Authority of any financial distress event, as defined in the contract, alongside the obligations to ensure regular monitoring of defined financial indicators. MOJ has not received any such notification.

b) The contracts introduced a structured governance process throughout the implementation period which monitors and manages the readiness of parties to commence service delivery against previously reviewed and approved implementation plans. The progress is assessed on a fortnightly basis in addition to ad hoc engagement on specific elements of the plan as identified by the relevant leads.

The delay to service commencement (from 1 June to 1 September) has enabled confidence in the ability of all parties to commence services from 1 September. Issues and risks related to Covid-19 have been identified with an appropriate management strategy. These have been built into the implementation plans and reports provided to the MOJ, and we remain confident of service delivery to the required timescales and in line with the service providers’ bids. The MOJ is continuing to develop the practices, processes and procedures in response to Covid-19 health and safety and are continually discussing these with service providers.

The MOJ has no reason to believe the service providers are unable to carry out the contract deliverables.