Tag: Tom Watson

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Tom Watson on 2014-07-15.

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what the value is of duplicate supplier payments identified by his Department since 2010; and what proportion of such payments have since been recovered in each of the last two financial years.

Mr David Lidington

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) does not hold all of the required data centrally and could not answer this question in full without incurring disproportionate costs. However, we recently investigated duplicate supplier payments for the eight month period from April to November 2013 and identified just one duplicate invoice, with a value of £2,501. Our financial control system prevented any payment being made. The FCO has several controls in place to prevent duplicate payments.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Tom Watson on 2015-02-10.

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, pursuant to the Answer of 2 February 2015 to Question 222435, what the (a) rank, (b) function and (c) location is of the five personnel from the UK Reaper Force on loan service to US Forces.

Mr Mark Francois

There are four Flight Lieutenant Instructors at 49th Operations Group, Holloman Air Force Base. There is also one Flight Lieutenant at 53rd Test and Evaluation Group, Creech Air Force Base in a test and evaluation role. None of the five personnel on loan are conducting operational mission flying.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Tom Watson on 2014-07-15.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what the value is of duplicate supplier payments identified by his Department since 2010; and what proportion of such payments have since been recovered in each of the last two financial years.

Dr Daniel Poulter

The Department checks for duplicate supplier payments as part of the business as usual processes within the finance team. As part of the internal process checks the Department has identified the value of duplicate supplier payments since 2010 as £1,287,260.31.

The proportion of such payments the Department has recovered following these internal checks in each of the last two financial years is as follows:

(i) Payments for 1 April 2012 to 31 March 2013 – £325,456.94 – of which 100% has been recovered based on the internal processes.

(ii) Payments for 1 April 2013 to 31 March 2014 – £282,198.56 – of which 100% has been recovered based on the internal processes.

For completeness, in the financial year 2010-11 the value of such payments was £510,599.10 of which 99.7% was recovered, and in financial year 2011-12 the value of such payments was £169,005.71 of which 98.6% was recovered.

Further investigations are taking place into duplicate payments made as part of a Spend Recovery Audit that the Department has commissioned externally and we will seek to recover any further duplicates identified as part of this exercise.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Tom Watson on 2015-02-10.

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, pursuant to the Answer of 2 February 2015 to Question 222435, what the name and date was of the agreement pursuant to which five personnel from Squadron 329 are on loan service to US Forces.

Mr Mark Francois

UK loan service (LS) personnel assisting the United States Air Force are covered by the terms of the NATO Status of Forces Agreement (1949), the US-UK Chapeau agreement (1993), the US-UK Provision of medical support agreement (2014), and US-UK discussions to determine working-level arrangements. LS personnel are subject to UK Service regulations; they are administered and receive pay and allowances from the UK.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Tom Watson on 2014-07-15.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what the value is of duplicate supplier payments identified by her Department since 2010; and what proportion of such payments have since been recovered in each of the last two financial years.

Karen Bradley

The information requested is shown in the following table:

The volume and value of duplicate supplier payments identified since the 2010-11 Financial year up to June 2014 is 54 payments for a total value of £2,495,793.63. We have recovered 53 payments totalling £2,494,661.63; the remaining payment was partially recovered and the company went into liquidation with the balance outstanding.

In the last two financial years the proportion of duplicate payments recovered by value was:
2013-14: 100%
2012-13: 99.53% (amount outstanding is for a company that went into liquidation after partial payment).

The volume and value of duplicate payments since 2010 have decreased significantly compared to the financial years prior to 2010-11.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Tom Watson on 2015-02-10.

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, pursuant to the Answer of 2 February 2015 to Question 222434, what consideration his Department has given to deployment of the UK Reapers in storage for Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance in Iraq.

Mr Mark Francois

As with all platforms and capabilities not deployed on operations, the deployment of additional Reaper aircraft currently in storage in the UK is kept under constant review.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Tom Watson on 2014-07-15.

To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what the value is of duplicate supplier payments identified by her Department since 2010; and what proportion of such payments have since been recovered in each of the last two financial years.

Lynne Featherstone

Duplicate payments to suppliers are shown in the table below.

Value	Financial Year
£ 3,721,960.01	2010/11
£ 720,052.49	2011/12
£ 1,105,217.80	2012/13
£ 5,352,323.62	2013/14

The proportion of duplicate payments recovered over the last 4 years is 98.74%.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Tom Watson on 2014-06-25.

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, on how many occasions ministerial authorisation has been granted for expenditure which exceeded his Department’s internal efficiency control thresholds for (a) advertising, marketing and communications, (b) consultancy and (c) external recruitment; and what the (i) purpose and (ii) value of any such agreed expenditure has been in the last 12 months.

Elizabeth Truss

The Department for Education has its own internal efficiency controls thresholds and complies with the Cabinet Office controls.

1. Advertising, Marketing and Communications expenditure above the Departmental threshold of £100,000 is submitted to Efficiency and Reform Group at Cabinet Office for final clearance.

2. Consultancy expenditure above £20,000 (and is a new contract expected to exceed 9 months, an existing contract to be extended beyond 9 months or is expenditure for procurement related consultancy) is submitted to Cabinet Office for final clearance.

3. Cabinet Office is not directly involved in recruitment approvals.

The approved expenditure requests which have exceeded Departmental thresholds are published on a quarterly basis on the Department’s website:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/approved-exemptions-to-the-efficiency-controls

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The below Parliamentary question was asked by Tom Watson on 2015-02-10.

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, whether a research analyst is advising his Department on the deployment of remotely piloted aircraft systems.

Mr Tobias Ellwood

No.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Tom Watson on 2014-07-15.

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what the value is of duplicate supplier payments identified by his Department since 2010; and what proportion of such payments have since been recovered in each of the last two financial years.

Mr Shailesh Vara

In the financial years 2011/12, 2012/13 and 2013/14 no duplicate supplier payments were made; all duplicate invoices were stopped before payment and therefore no recovery action was necessary. In 2010/11 duplicate payments totalling £8,964.35 were made. This represents a small proportion, 0.039%, of the total number of duplicate payments invoiced over the four year period. It is possible that this entire amount was recovered, however, disproportionate cost would be incurred in determining this.