Ministry of Justice: Electronic Purchasing Card Solution

(asked on 8th December 2022) - View Source

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, pursuant to the Answer of 18 October 2022 to Question 61812, what work was being carried out by staff while staying at (a) Elizabeth Beach Reso, (b) La Playa Hotel, (c) La Vue and (d) Simpson Bay Resort; and if he will provide a breakdown by the grade of the staff members staying in each accommodation.


Answered by
Mike Freer Portrait
Mike Freer
Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
This question was answered on 13th December 2022

The payments made to the merchants ‘ELIZABETH BEACH RESORT’, ‘LA PLAYA HOTEL’, ‘LA VUE’ and ‘SIMPSON BAY RESORT’ were accommodation costs for two staff members in His Majesty Prisons and Probation Operational Response and Resilience Unit (ORRU) during a deployment to Anguilla, British Virgin Islands and Turks and Caicos Islands. The work was commissioned through the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office and funded by the Conflict, Stability and Security Fund.

The purpose of the visit was to conduct an emergency response assessment of prisons in the British Overseas Territories in the event of HMPPS being required to support the OTs in future emergency situations similar to those experienced in 2017 following a hurricane in the British Virgin Islands. The work was completed by two members of staff at Band 11 and Band 8.

All hotels booked were from approved lists provided by the Foreign and Commonwealth Development Office and we are content that the referenced payments were also subject to normal MoJ controls and in line with government procurement card policy and was an appropriate use of public money.

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