Baroness Bowles of Berkhamsted

The government does not collate this information centrally.

The guidance referred to in HL5235 is the FRC's Guidance on the Going Concern Basis of Accounting and Related Reporting (including Solvency and Liquidity risks). This guidance was developed to support companies in completing their 'going concern statement' and not to address matters relating to distributable profits. The Institute of Chartered Accountants England and Wales (ICAEW) currently prepares guidance on how companies should calculate their distributable reserves.

Guidance issued by the Financial Reporting Council does not change any legal requirement. The issuance and/or application of this guidance would not therefore have caused a change in the going concern basis of accounting assessment.

The Government announced in the King's Speech its intention to publish a draft Audit Reform and Corporate Governance Bill that will transition the FRC to a new Audit, Reporting and Governance Authority and provide it with relevant powers. The Government will consider the recommendations of the report, including relating to the Government and FRC producing definitions and guidance on what constitutes distributable profits, as work progresses.

The Official Receiver on behalf of Carillion Plc and another issued a negligence claim against KPMG, the company's auditors, in November 2021. The area of law on which the claim was based was negligence. The negligence action and compliance with accounting standards are closely connected and the defence to the action relates to both. The defence itself is held on the court file which can be inspected with the consent of the court.

The Financial Reporting Council (FPR) 'Guidance on the Going Concern Basis of Accounting and Related Reporting (including Solvency and Liquidity Risks)' (the guidance) is non-mandatory and non-statutory guidance issued by the FRC to support its public interest outcomes. The guidance was not developed to address matters relating to distributable profits.

Section 393 of the Companies Act 2006 is referenced in the guidance as one of the relevant requirements. Accounting standards set the threshold for departing from the going concern basis of accounting. As noted in paragraph 3.3 of the guidance, there are often realistic alternatives to liquidation or cessation of operations.

The information requested could only be collected and verified for the purpose of answering this question at disproportionate cost.

The standard contract terms and conditions that are in use by the Department and across the Government include intellectual property (IP) clauses which grant the buyer a licence to use the supplier’s IP in the context of receiving and benefiting from the deliverables being bought. These typically allow sub-licensing under certain conditions and restrictions designed to avoid unfair exploitation of supplier IP. Standard terms and conditions are available on the GOV.UK website.

Such terms and conditions also allow for the buyer to publish any new IP rights as open licence under the Government’s standard open licence.

The Department may also obtain licenses from external supplier/organisations to utilise their IP. An example of this is the Family Nurse Partnership (FNP), which is a licensed program developed and owned by the University of Colorado Denver. The Department and the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities (OHID) have entered into a licence to deliver the program in the United Kingdom, and OHID is authorised to sub-license the FNP program to other organisations.

The Department’s grant funding agreements may include IP clauses where outputs are expected, but the intellectual property is usually retained by the grant recipient, with the Department granted a royalty-free, non-exclusive licence to use any arising IP for public benefit.

The Department currently has 474 active contracts and 31 active grants. Finding instances of active sub-licensing of IP would involve manual searches of the information held for each of these cases, and would only be obtained at disproportionate cost.

The government does not collate this information centrally.

The government does not collate this information centrally.

The Chancellor has been clear that stability and sound money are key prerequisites for growth and strong public services. The government has taken hard but necessary decisions to fix the foundations of our economy and bring back economic stability - including through the savings identified at the July statement.