Asked by: Holly Mumby-Croft (Conservative - Scunthorpe)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what discussions he has had with the Home Secretary on developing a strategy to tackle phone call and text message financial scams.
Answered by John Whittingdale
Officials in our departments have been working closely to explore a range of different measures aimed at tackling the criminal abuse of mobile telecommunications across the different crime types, including fraud.
The Government takes fraud very seriously and will continue to work closely with telecommunications providers, regulators, law enforcement agencies and consumer groups to protect the public from these crimes. This includes developing a voluntary charter of actions that the telecoms companies will implement to prevent fraud.
Later this year, the Government will take further action through a Fraud Action Plan, an approach grounded in prevention, education, effective enforcement and regulatory reforms.
Asked by: Jon Trickett (Labour - Normanton and Hemsworth)
Question to the Attorney General:
To ask the Attorney General, pursuant to the Answer of 23 March 2018 to Question 123531, on Attorney General: Procurement, if he will list (a) the suppliers of and (b) the purpose of the (i) the Government Legal Department's contracts with the eight strategic suppliers (ii) the CPS's six contracts with strategic suppliers, (iii) the Serious Fraud Office's three contracts with strategic suppliers and (iv) Her Majesty's Crown Prosecution Service Inspectorate's contracts with which two strategic suppliers.
Answered by Robert Buckland
Pursuant to the Answer of 23 March 2018 to Question 123531, the table below summarises the purpose of the six contracts between the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) and government strategic suppliers.
Supplier | Purpose of contract |
Capita | Supply of interim and temporary staff let via a pan government framework. |
CGI | (1) ICT Applications, Hosting and Management let via a pan government framework. (2) Managed payroll services let via a pan government framework. (3) Oracle finance system managed service let via a pan government framework. (4) Fully managed ICT services including; applications, hosting and management, system integration and management, service desk and end user computing. |
Vodafone | National contract let via the Cabinet Office G-Cloud framework for managed video conferencing services. |
In addition, the CPS has no major contracts but multiple agreements with the following government strategic suppliers:
BT –for land line phones, alarm systems and business broadband lines.
Microsoft - for MS office products, server and networking applications and other software products.
Oracle - for server and networking applications and other software products.
The table below summarises the purpose of the contracts between the Government Legal Department (GLD) and Her Majesty’s Crown Prosecution Service Inspectorate (HMCPSI) and government strategic suppliers. It is the policy to engage with suppliers using central government frameworks and call off arrangements.
Supplier | GLD – purpose of contract | HMCPSI - purpose of contract |
BT plc | Provision of phone services for business continuity (disaster recovery). | Provision of mobile connectivity services and video conferencing at the York office |
Cap Gemini | Provision of a supplier invoice receipt and scanning service; provision of a cloud-based invoice approval and electronic document management system; and secure destruction of paper documents. |
|
Capita | Predominately temporary staff, mainly lawyers, and training courses. |
|
Fujitsu | Provision of e-disclosure services to support legal cases. |
|
Microsoft | Software licences and support for Microsoft products, for example, Windows and Office Suites. |
|
Mitie | Office cleaning services. |
|
Oracle | Software licences and support. |
|
Vodafone | Provision of mobile phone and connectivity services. | Provision of mobile phone and connectivity services. |
The table below summarises the purpose of the contracts between the Attorney General’s Office (AGO) and government strategic suppliers.
Supplier | Purpose of contract |
Amey | Facilities management |
BT | Network lines |
Capita | IT services |
The table below summarises the purpose of the contracts between the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) and government strategic suppliers.
Supplier | Purpose of contract |
BT PLC | Broadband lines at Southwark Crown Court |
Capita | IT support contract |
Vodafone | network services contract |
Asked by: Lord Faulkner of Worcester (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask Her Majesty's Government why reverse charge VAT has been applied to products such as mobile phones and gold, but not to scrap metal.
Answered by Lord Bates
HMRC uses a wide range of risk assessment and compliance responses to identify and tackle non-compliance. The introduction of a reverse charge can be effective in preventing certain types of VAT fraud. It is used selectively and targeted at the highest risks such as mobile phones and, most recently, telecommunications.
Asked by: Ben Bradshaw (Labour - Exeter)
Question to the Attorney General:
To ask the Attorney General, how many mobile telephones, BlackBerrys and laptops were lost by the Law Officers' Departments in (a) 2013 and (b) 2014 to date.
Answered by Oliver Heald
The information requested is contained in the following table.
Serious Fraud Office | Crown Prosecution Service | Treasury Solicitor's Department | ||||
2013 | 2014 | 2013 | 2014 | 2013 | 2014 | |
Laptops | 1 | 1 | 13 | 1 | 2 | 1 |
Mobile Phones | 1 | 1 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Blackberry's | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 |
The Attorney General's Office and the HM Crown Prosecution Service Inspectorate have not recorded any losses of IT or communications technology during this period.