Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:

To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, what steps his Department is taking to ensure (a) effective management and (b) oversight of fibre broadband rollout in Surrey Heath constituency.

Openreach is delivering a Project Gigabit contract across Surrey. This contract currently includes approximately 1,900 premises in the Surrey Heath constituency.

All Project Gigabit contracts include criteria and obligations regarding time and budget against which suppliers’ performance is monitored. These include measures to manage effective build plans, milestones, risks and issues.

Building Digital UK (BDUK) holds regular meetings with suppliers to discuss their progress. Each supplier’s performance is measured using monthly contractual reporting, reviewing the build progress and payment claims on each contract.

Failure to deliver to a contract milestone on any build phase of a contract can result in the trigger of a rectification plan process and cessation of payments until the milestone is achieved.

Beyond Project Gigabit, in areas where deployment is commercially viable we have created a competition-friendly environment to support the quick roll-out of gigabit technologies.