Asked by: Gavin Newlands (Scottish National Party - Paisley and Renfrewshire North)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, what his Department's policy is on the use of debt collection agencies to collect outstanding payments.
Answered by Lord Johnson of Marylebone
The core Department’s policy is governed by HM Treasury’s ‘Managing Public Money’ guidance. This sets out that public sector organisations should always pursue recovery of debts. In practice there will be both practical and legal limits to how cases should be handled. So each case should be dealt with on its merits. Within BIS, the use of a debt collection agency would only be considered after all other methods of recovery had failed.
Asked by: Gavin Newlands (Scottish National Party - Paisley and Renfrewshire North)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, how his Department regulates the activities of debt collection agencies during the period that they are under contract with his Department.
Answered by Lord Johnson of Marylebone
Should any direct contracts be let with debt recovery agencies, the scope and extent of any activity would be agreed as part of the contract negotiation and a process of routine monitoring put in place.
Asked by: Gavin Newlands (Scottish National Party - Paisley and Renfrewshire North)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, what assessment of the ethical standards of debt collection agencies his Department undertakes before entering into a contract with such agencies.
Answered by Lord Johnson of Marylebone
Any debt collection contracts let by the core Department would primarily use available framework contracts agreed by the Crown Commercial Service who are responsible for including any required assessment of ethical standards. However, if the need for a specialist debt collection contract should arise that could not be met by a framework contract, the Department’s tender and contract documentation would include further assessments as may be deemed necessary.
Asked by: Gavin Newlands (Scottish National Party - Paisley and Renfrewshire North)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, how many applications have been approved by the Start-up Loan Company in each of the last five years.
Answered by Anna Soubry
Since the Start Up Loans Company was established in September 2012, the Start-up Loans Company has approved a total of 36,960 applications. A breakdown of applications granted in each of the past four financial years since the Company began is set out below.
| SULCo Loans Approved | |
Financial Year | Volume | Value |
2012-2013 | 2,565 | £13,922,757 |
2013-2014 | 13,431 | £74,218,127 |
2014-2015 | 13,658 | £68,344,871 |
2015-2016 (up to December 2015) | 7,306 | £50,235,681 |