Asked by: Lord Agnew of Oulton (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Baroness Merron on 16 January (HL3971), what are the names and total revenue allocations for each of the 38 National Health Service NHS providers that failed to meet the audit completion deadline of 28 June 2024 for the financial year ending 31 March 2024.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department set a deadline of 28 June 2024 for the completion of National Health Service provider audits, for the year that ended 31 March 2024. 38 NHS providers did not meet the deadline. NHS providers do not receive revenue allocations, and instead revenue is earned through the provision of services. A table showing the 38 NHS providers and their total operating income is attached.
Asked by: Lord Agnew of Oulton (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what proportion of GP practices in the top 20 percent of achievement scores in the Quality and Outcomes Framework had an exception reporting rate above the national average in the most recent financial year for which data are available.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Personalised care adjustments (PCAs) replaced exception reporting in 2019. PCAs operate in the same way as exceptions, but PCA specification follows a consistent hierarchy which supports better attribution of the reason for care being personalised.
The national PCA rate in 2023/24 was 8.2%. 1,253 general practices’ Quality and Outcomes Framework (QOF) achievement rates fell in the top 20% of achievement rates, and of these, 418, or 33.6%, had PCA rates greater than 8.2%. This information is taken from the published QOF statistics, and is available in an online only format on the NHS.UK website.
Asked by: Lord Agnew of Oulton (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many penalty clauses have been enforced against suppliers of Government Major Projects Portfolio projects managed by the Department of Work and Pensions because of delays or cost overruns in the past three years, and what is the total financial value recovered.
Answered by Baroness Sherlock - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Penalty clauses that unduly punish a contract party are unenforceable by the courts and we do not include them in our contracts. We have contract clauses negotiated that operate in good faith that will be breached if not delivered/operated in the required way. Financial recompense will be commensurate to actual loss and agreed in the contract terms. However, we do not collect, hold centrally or report data on the enforcement of such terms.
Asked by: Lord Agnew of Oulton (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government what estimate they have made of the total number of procurement frameworks currently in use across the public sector.
Answered by Baroness Twycross - Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)
Information is not centrally held by the Cabinet Office on the total number of procurement frameworks currently in use across the public sector.
Crown Commercial Service (CCS) analysis suggests there are approximately 2,275 frameworks in the public sector that compete with CCS agreements.
Under the Transforming Public Procurement reforms, there will be a requirement to register procurement frameworks on the central Transparency Platform. This will enhance transparency and provide greater visibility of frameworks in operation.
Asked by: Lord Agnew of Oulton (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government, with reference to Cabinet Office Government Major Projects Portfolio Data for March 2024, published on 16 January, what factors have led to the budget variance of 264 per cent for the Vetting Transformation Programme.
Answered by Baroness Twycross - Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)
The figures for March 2024 contained in the Cabinet Office Government Major Projects Portfolio (GMPP) data predate the closure of the programme. The baseline figure of £5.5m relates to expenditure in financial year (FY) 23/24. Actual expenditure in FY 23/24 was £5.7m which represents an overspend of 3.6%. The £20m cited in the GMPP reflected the original funding for the FY.
Asked by: Lord Agnew of Oulton (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government which NHS providers accounted for the largest proportion of the £7.5 billion impairment in its Public Dividend Capital investments in 2023–24 outlined on page 240 of the Department of Health and Social Care’s Annual Report and Accounts 2023–24, published on 17 December 2024; and what were the individual values of those impairments.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Public Dividend Capital (PDC) is impaired, on an individual National Health Service provider basis, where the net assets of those NHS providers fall below the level of PDC issued to that trust or foundation trust, irrespective of whether subsequent PDC write-offs are likely to occur. The following table shows the NHS providers that accounted for the largest proportion of the £7.5 billion impairment in 2023/24, along with their respective values:
NHS provider name | Impairment value |
Barts Health NHS Trust | £621,000,000 |
Barking, Havering and Redbridge University Hospitals NHS Trust | £298,000,000 |
Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust | £289,000,000 |
University Hospitals of Derby and Burton NHS Foundation Trust | £282,000,000 |
University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire NHS Trust | £260,000,000 |
University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust | £248,000,000 |
Norfolk and Norwich University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust | £238,000,000 |
University Hospitals of North Midlands NHS Trust | £234,000,000 |
King's College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust | £216,000,000 |
Mersey and West Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust | £212,000,000 |
University Hospitals Sussex NHS Foundation Trust | £203,000,000 |
South Tees Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust | £201,000,000 |
North West Anglia NHS Foundation Trust | £196,000,000 |
Mid Yorkshire Teaching NHS Trust | £187,000,000 |
St George's University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust | £180,000,000 |
North Bristol NHS Trust | £176,000,000 |
East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust | £175,000,000 |
Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust | £172,000,000 |
Portsmouth Hospitals University NHS Trust | £158,000,000 |
East Kent Hospitals University NHS Foundation Trust | £145,000,000 |
Sherwood Forest Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust | £131,000,000 |
Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust | £129,000,000 |
Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust | £126,000,000 |
Cumbria, Northumberland, Tyne and Wear NHS Foundation Trust | £105,000,000 |
A change in the accounting treatment for measuring Private Finance Initiative lease liabilities under International Financial Reporting Standards 16 Leases has partly contributed to the increase in the value of the impairments reported in the Department’s 2023/24 accounts.
Asked by: Lord Agnew of Oulton (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government, with reference to pages 239 and 240 of the Department of Health and Social Care Annual Report and Accounts 2023–24, published on 17 December 2024, how many cases of retrospective approval for expenditure outside delegated limits have been identified in the Consolidated NHS Provider Accounts for 2023–24; and whether the Treasury has granted retrospective approval for all these cases to date.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
NHS England has requested retrospective approval of five cases from HM Treasury relating to National Health Service trusts and NHS foundation trusts’ special severance payments in the 2023/24 financial year, all five of which are still pending approval. The retrospective approval process is as set out in HM Treasury’s guidance on managing public money, Guidance on Public Sector Exit Payments: Use of Special Severance Payments.
Asked by: Lord Agnew of Oulton (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government, with reference to page 62 of the Cabinet Office’s Annual report and accounts 2023 to 2024, published on 12 December 2024, what specific changes to the lease terms for the two buildings identified by the Government Property Agency during 2023–24 were not reflected in the International Financial Reporting Standard 16 accounting for 2022–23; and what was the financial impact of these errors on the restated accounts.
Answered by Baroness Twycross - Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)
Further information on the GPA prior year adjustments can be found on page 165 of the 2023/24 Cabinet Office Annual Report and Accounts.
In July 2022 a head lease was surrendered and a new head lease granted with a revised rent which extended the lease term by 20 years. The right of use asset and lease liability were not remeasured to reflect the extended lease term. The financial impact of this error on the restated 2022/23 accounts was as follows:
Right of use assets at 31 March 2023 increased by £81.5m
Lease liabilities at 31 March 2023 increased by £76.1m
Finance expense increased by £0.5m
Right of use asset depreciation expenditure decreased by £0.6m
(Gain)/loss on remeasurement of right of use assets decreased by £6.5m
In March 2023, a Deed of Variation was agreed with a client to extend the sub-lease term by 12 years to align with the head lease. The lease modification should have resulted in the GPA reclassifying the sub-lease from an operating lease to a finance lease in accordance with the GPA’s IFRS 16 accounting policies. The financial impact of this error on the restated 2022/23 accounts was as follows:
Right of use assets at 31 March 2023 decreased by £135.3m
Investment in sublease assets at 31 March 2023 increased by £154.5m
Lease incentive receivable assets at 31 March 2023 decreased by £19.2m
Asked by: Lord Agnew of Oulton (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government what penalties or sanctions apply to contracting authorities that fail to publish pipeline notices under section 93 of the Procurement Act 2023.
Answered by Baroness Twycross - Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)
Pipeline notices are required to be published under the Procurement Act 2023 (the Act). Where a contracting authority has a third-party spend of more than £100 million, it is required to publish a pipeline notice for every procurement with an estimated value of more than £2 million.
Information published in procurement notices will be viewable, free of charge, in an accessible format. It will be clear which contracting authorities are publishing the pipeline notice in the pipeline view on the central digital platform.
The Procurement Review Unit (PRU), established to exercise the procurement oversight powers in Part 10 of the Act, may investigate a contracting authority's compliance with the Act. Non-compliance, including failure to publish a pipeline notice, may lead to an investigation and the results may be published by the PRU. The PRU may make recommendations to the contracting authority in order for them to achieve compliance. The contracting authority must have due regard to these recommendations and may be required to submit a progress report if directed by the PRU.
Asked by: Lord Agnew of Oulton (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what proportion of NHS providers failed to complete audited financial results in line with the Department of Health and Social Care's reporting timetable in the past financial year.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department set a deadline of 28 June 2024 for the completion of National Health Service provider audits for the year that ended on 31 March 2024. 38 of the 211 NHS providers, representing 18%, did not meet the deadline.