Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to the Answer of 24 June 2019 to Question 266123 on NHS: Legal Costs, how his Department differentiates between individual projects or cases; and what steps his Department takes to (a) ensure that public funds paid to those legal services providers is in respect of work actually done or carried out by those providers and (b) record the areas of law and jurisdictions of courts and tribunals in which the work is done.

The Department uses two main routes to engaging legal support.

- The Department’s Anti-Fraud Unit (AFU) engages external law firms through the Civil Litigation and Arbitration in Medicines and Pharmaceuticals Framework, as well as the Government Legal Department (GLD). The AFU utilises a case management system in order to differentiate between individual cases and checks are conducted against invoices and supporting documents submitted by each law firm, including GLD, to ensure these are reflective of their instructions.

- Other business areas within the Department consult with the GLD on the resources available and should they not have the capacity then they will a conduct a competition for other Legal service providers using the Crown Commercial Services framework contract. GLD will ensure that deliverables are agreed and undertaken to the agreed quality before payments are made.