Early day motion tabled by primary sponsor Lord Howarth of Newport (Labour), on Wednesday, 19 March 1997, in the House of Commons. It is signed by 15 members in total.

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BENEFITS AGENCY MEDICAL SERVICE

That this House deplores the Government's decision to contract out the Benefits Agency Medical Service to the private sector without Parliamentary debate on the role and accountability of the contractors; in particular the contracting-out of the decision-making 'adjudication' function; believes that contracting-out of the assessment of disability benefits affecting over six million people and concerning a budget of almost ??16 billion is a policy development of such magnitude that there should be Parliamentary scrutiny of the scope of the service to be contracted out and the terms of the contract being offered; is extremely concerned that there should be safeguards to ensure the confidentiality and limited use of sensitive personal information, especially where private companies may have commercial interests in a data bank of claimant information or may already have access to other data bases with which to cross-reference this information; notes the inadequacy of Parliamentary procedures for the accountability of any public service which is contracted out to the private sector; notes the delay in implementing the original timetable for this particular contractorisation; calls for a halt to the process until there has been a full Parliamentary debate on how value for money is to be obtained and on how the quality of service is to be maintained and improved; and calls on Her Majesty's Government to undertake urgent consultation on this matter with organisations representing disabled people.

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Secondary information

Type

Early day motion

Reference

701 

Session

1996-97

Subjects

Privatisation Benefits Agency Medical Service

Link

View this Early day motion on www.parliament.uk