To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what progress has been made on the procurement exercise conducted by the Learning and Skills Council for the Managing Information Across Partners programme. (116372)

A preferred bidder has been selected to design, build and operate a Learner Registration Service, Learner Data Sharing Interface and Register of Learning Providers. This has followed a formal Government procurement process, initiated by a European Journal Notice issued in May 2006, and conducted under the competitive dialogue route. Three organisations were taken through to the bid stage. We are currently in the final stages of fine tuning and we expect to award the contract formally on Friday 19 January 2007 to LogicaCMG.