Wednesday 16 January 2013

PQs - 16 January 2013

http://www.theyworkforyou.com/wrans/?id=2013-01-16a.136551.h

16 January 2013
Applied Language Solutions
Justice

Sadiq Khan (Tooting, Labour)
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice how much ALS/Capita has been paid (a) in total and (b) in each month since taking over the contract for the delivery of language services to his Department.

Helen Grant (Maidstone and The Weald, Conservative)
Spend per month on the Capita language services contract with the Ministry of Justice is set out in the following table. The figures for October and November 2012 are combined because Capita missed the October deadline for submitting its invoice.
Month in 2012
Spend (£)
February
110,419.53
March
439,935.20
April
642,027.36
May
693,325.92
June
797,555.15
July
1,116,034.18
August
1,003,596.92

September
944,674.26
October and November
1,851,512.76
December
913,748.54
Total
8,513,829.82





16 January 2013
Applied Language Solutions
Justice

Sadiq Khan (Tooting, Labour)
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice what financial penalties ALS/Capita has paid (a) in total and (b) in each month for missing agreed service delivery standards since taking over the contract for the delivery of language services to his Department.

Helen Grant (Maidstone and The Weald, Conservative)
Capita only gets paid for completed bookings, so if it cannot supply an interpreter, it does not get paid. The Ministry of Justice manages poor service delivery and performance through a number of methods and remedies open to them under the contract. The Ministry is continually working with the supplier to improve performance delivery standards.
Service credits can be imposed on Capita in line with the terms of the contract when performance falls below the contractual level of 98% success rate. Ministry of Justice Procurement took the commercial decision not to impose service credits February to April due to the investment of £3.5 million by Capita to improve service performance. This is a normal decision at the beginning of a new contract. Service credits have been applied by the Department from June 2012 covering May onwards, as set out in the following table. The low amounts are due to increasing improvement in service to 95.3% performance by August 2012. The service credit amounts for the final months of 2012 will be available in February.
Month in 2012
Service credit imposed (£)
May
347
June
416
July
422
August
279
Total
1,464
Service credits are not penalties, they are one of the remedies under the contract. As part of the competitive dialogue process we asked the bidders to provide us with their approach to service credits against a set of key performance indicators. The service credits presented by Applied Language Solutions were equal if not greater than those presented by other bidders.





16 January 2013
Applied Language Solutions
Justice

Sadiq Khan (Tooting, Labour)
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice when the break clause is in his Department's contract with ALS/Capita for the delivery of language services.

Helen Grant (Maidstone and The Weald, Conservative)
The Ministry of Justice signed the framework agreement for the justice sector in August 2011 for four years with Applied Language Solutions, now owned by Capita. The Department signed its own contract under the framework agreement in October 2011 for five years.
The framework agreement does not prevent the Ministry of Justice from contracting with other providers. Break clauses for material breach are also included in the contract.
The National Audit Office recommended that the Ministry of Justice fully implement the contract, and we are discussing this with interpreters, Capita and other partners to the framework agreement.

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