New Deal Schemes

Mr. Harper
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many bids her Department has received for Flexible New Deal Phase 2 contracts; and how many full-time equivalent staff in her Department are responsible for analysing and evaluating bids submitted for Phase 2 Flexible New Deal contracts.

Jim Knight
To date, the Department has not received any bids. The deadline for flexible new deal phase 2 bids to be submitted to DWP is 6 January 2010.

The number of full-time equivalent staff likely to be involved in the evaluation will be influenced by the number of tenders that are actually returned and will include staff from across several expert domains.