Andy Slaughter – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Justice

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Andy Slaughter on 2015-02-11.

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what recent progress he has made on proposals to privatise the criminal fine enforcement service.

Mr Shailesh Vara

Final bids were submitted on 5 January 2015 and negotiations commenced on 26 January as planned. The full final business case is currently in the process of being updated with results from the negotiation meetings, which then needs to continue through the usual governance and approvals processes that need to occur before any contract award of this type. Further negotiations may be required over the coming weeks to further refine the proposals.

The investment and technology an external provider can bring will enable the automation of many of the manual administrative processes and in turn decrease the cost of providing fine enforcement and increase the amount of fines that are paid. The innovation will free up staff time to enable them to be more pro-active in pursuing offenders to ensure they comply with their court order.