High Speed 2 Railway Line
(asked on 17th March 2015) - View Source
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, which contracts have been entered into by his Department or HS2 Ltd in relation to High Speed 2; what the timescales of those contracts are; and what penalties there are for early termination of each contract.
As part of the Government’s transparency agenda, the Department publishes information on contracts above the £10,000 threshold on Contracts Finder. This is subject to an exemption under the Freedom of Information Act or, where applicable, the Public Interest Test.
A specific list of contracts into which DfT(c) has entered in relation to High Speed 2 is provided below. We have focussed our response on contracts which were let out from 1 April 2014 to 1 March 2015. We have also interpreted the term “contract” to mean base contract and did not include the substantive extensions. The information below includes contracts for contingent labour.
DfT(c) Contract Name | Contract start date | Contract end date |
HS2 Sponsor Team Commercial and Programme Management Specialists | 9/2/15 | 8/2/16 |
HS2 Research Project (Capturing the value of major infrastructure: learning from Europe) | 23/6/14 | 30/11/14 |
HS2 Research Project (Ambitions & expectations – disseminating the insights. Phase 3 pt1) | 4/3/15 | 31/3/15 |
HS2 Logic Mapping | 11/8/14 | 24/12/14 |
HS2 Private Finance Study | 16/12/14 | 31/3/15 |
HS2 Strategic Case Consultancy | 7/11/14 | 30/4/15 |
HS2 Interim Financial Adviser Consultancy | 9/2/15
| 30/9/15
|
Behavioural Insight - HS2 Property | 19/09/14 | 31/12/14 |
Project Management Support to HS2 Property Programme | 22/09/14
| 31/03/14 |
Tripartite Co-operation Board Chair | 1/07/14 | 30/06/18 |
Independent advisor to the SRO (Advisory Support to Director General, High Speed 2Group) | 1/01/15 | 31/03/16 |
1 Contingent Labour worker | 2/12/14 | 2/06/15 |
1 Contingent Labour worker | 10/11/14 | 27/02/15 |
The majority of the Department’s consultancy contracts for HS2 have been let against the Crown Commercial Service Consultancy One Framework Terms and Conditions. The framework terms and conditions do not have penalty clauses for early termination, but set out the rights and obligations for both the Department and the Contractor in the event of an early termination.
The standard termination period for contingent labour worker is 30 days.
The standard termination period for contracts issued under the Consultancy One Framework depends on the reason for termination and can be with immediate effect for a material breach, persistent failure or grave misconduct. The Department may at its absolute discretion under termination of convenience at any time and for any reason terminate the contracted services and work at the Department’s convenience by giving the Bidder five business days’ notice in writing of its intention to do so.
A specific list of contracts into which HS2 Ltd has entered is provided in the attached table.