To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what checks his Department plans to make on companies and organisations tendering for contracts to administer visa application checks; how it will monitor the performance of those awarded such contracts; and what estimate he has made of the likely annual cost to his Department of such monitoring. (178731)

The commercial partnership contract to provide visa application services was signed on 27 February 2007 with CSC and VFS Global. Procurement was conducted in accordance with EU rules and under the Official Journal of the European Union procedure. Prospective bidders were required to provide evidence of their financial standing. UKvisas also conducted due diligence on all three short-listed companies and both successful companies have signed parent company guarantees. Performance is monitored through a regional and central governance structure and this includes performance against a number of agreed critical service performance levels/criteria, which can attract financial recompense to UKvisas if not met. In respect of the cost of monitoring, the information is not held centrally and could be provided only at disproportionate cost.