Asked by: Lord Agnew of Oulton (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government how much the Home Office has spent in each year since 2020 under the RM6141 and RM6302 language services frameworks; and whether the department has used or maintained any separate or competing frameworks, contracts or commercial routes for the procurement of language services during the same period, and, if so, how much has been spent through them.
Answered by Lord Hanson of Flint - Minister of State (Home Office)
The information requested is not currently available from published statistics, and the relevant data could only be collated and verified for the purpose of answering this question at disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Lord Agnew of Oulton (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government, with regard to page 43 of their policy paper Spending Review 2025: Departmental Efficiency Plans, published on 11 June, what percentage of the Cabinet Office’s commercial contracts by value are due for renewal or renegotiation by 2028–29; and what proportion of the £3 million efficiency savings relating to procurement has already been contractually secured.
Answered by Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent - Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)
21% by value of the Cabinet Office’s live contracts are intended for renewal between 1 April 2026 and 31st March 2029.
The Cabinet Office published our technical efficiency delivery plan along with all other departments as part of the Spending Review 2025. This included a commitment to delivering £1m in annual efficiencies related to procurement in 2027/28, increasing to £3m in 2028/29. We are in active negotiations to begin delivery of the efficiencies.
Asked by: Lord Agnew of Oulton (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask His Majesty's Government, with regard to page 41 of their policy paper Spending Review 2025: Departmental Efficiency Plans, published on 11 June, what was the average cost per case in 2024–25 for (1) ministerial, and (2) public correspondence in the Treasury; and what is the projected average cost per case under the automated correspondence system.
Answered by Lord Livermore - Financial Secretary (HM Treasury)
Due to correspondence being just one role officials have, the potential for multiple officials to be involved, and differing complexity per case, we do not currently attribute precise staff time spent per case. Therefore, we are unable to provide an average cost per case for ministerial or public correspondence in 2024–25.
However, as set out in the Departmental Efficiency Plans, the adoption of AI-driven automation is expected to both speed up casework and reduce overall costs. We anticipate efficiency gains relative to current arrangements. Further detail will be available once the automated tools are fully developed and deployed and the impact assessed in terms of central resource and time savings.
Asked by: Lord Agnew of Oulton (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask His Majesty's Government how much the Ministry of Justice has spent in each year since 2020 under the RM6141 and RM6302 language services frameworks; and whether the department has used or maintained any separate or competing frameworks, contracts or commercial routes for the procurement of language services during the same period, and, if so, how much has been spent through them.
Answered by Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede
The Ministry of Justice has not called off against Crown Commercial Service frameworks RM 6141 (Language Services) or its successor RM 6302 at any point since 2020; spend under both frameworks in every year is therefore £0. The timing of available frameworks did not align with the Department’s needs. Timelines have since been aligned for the following round of tendering.
Instead, the Department has continued to meet its interpretation and translation needs through its MoJ Language-Services Framework, first established in 2012 and re-let in 2016 following open competition. Courts also operate a non-contracted, or “off-contract” process, typically to cover requirements that arise at short notice and those that are more challenging to fulfil, such as the requirement for languages that are rare or scarce. The use of off-contract interpreters allows hearings to go ahead, to continue the delivery of justice. The next generation of contracts, currently being procured, include the use of a secondary supplier of interpreters, specifically to source those short notice bookings, and to bring this spend on-contract, with benefits such as improved data and value for money. Furthermore, we are the only organisation to also utilise an independent quality assurance supplier of these services.
The arrangement is open for other public-sector bodies to use, but is let independently of the CCS frameworks so that the Ministry of Justice can:
Expenditure recorded against the MoJ framework since 2020 is below:
Year | Contracted Expenditure | Off-Contract expenditure | Total Expenditure |
2020 | £20,217,548 | £1,193,788 | £21,411,336 |
2021 | £25,062,618 | £2,157,759 | £27,220,377 |
2022 | £26,883,747 | £4,856,616 | £31,740,363 |
2023 | £30,374,050 | £6,565,781 | £36,939,831 |
2024 | £31,625,158 | £7,037,731 | £38,662,889 |
Asked by: Lord Agnew of Oulton (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask His Majesty's Government what was the total expenditure by local-authority-maintained schools and academies in England on agency supply teachers in the financial years (1) 2023–24, and (2) 2024–25.
Answered by Baroness Smith of Malvern - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Supply teachers perform a valuable role and the department is grateful for their important contribution to schools across the country.
Schools and local authorities are responsible for the recruitment of their supply teachers.
In the 2023/24 financial year, local authority-maintained schools spent approximately £522 million on agency supply teaching staff. In the 2023/24 academic year, academies spent approximately £898 million on agency supply teaching staff (financial returns data for academies is aligned with academic years). There is no data available for the 2024/25 academic or financial years. This data is from published school financial returns. Note that the two figures cannot be added together directly, due to the different time periods covered and the risk of double counting spend for maintained schools who convert to academy status.