Business Services Authority

Answer: One answer or two? As my hon. Friend the Member for Luton, North (Kelvin Hopkins) knows, about 50 per cent. of the Pensions Agency work is already outsourced and, under the terms of that contract, the winning contractor—out of the 33 organisations that bid—has first rights to bid on any expansion of that contract. That bid is under development now and our first assessment will need to be whether that bid is value for money, before it goes any further.

This is an answer to the Oral question asked on Tuesday, 7 March 2006 by Kelvin Hopkins (Labour).

Question: Apparently, PriceWaterhouseCoopers put out a report suggesting that the contracting out of the pension scheme administration would be challenging and pose a degree of business continuity risk. Is not this simply an attempt to privatise, driven by dogma?

Secondary information