John Penrose (Shadow Minister (Business Enterprise and Regulatory Reform), Business; Weston-Super-Mare, Conservative)

To ask the Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills what steps were taken to enable Companies House to manage the demand for electronic incorporations following the coming into force of the relevant provisions of the Companies Act 2006 on 1 October 2009.

Ian Lucas (Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Business and Regulatory Reform), Department for Business, Innovation and Skills; Wrexham, Labour)

All Companies House operational processes, including electronic incorporations, required to support the implementation of the Companies Act 2006, were subject to the same programme disciplines. Processes were reviewed, redesigned as necessary within the programme, and then quality assured by the relevant operational areas. The computer system changes required to support the revised operational processes were designed, built and subjected to a number of testing cycles. Staff were trained to undertake the new processes and then had practice sessions to reinforce the training they had received. In addition staff were trained in a number of processes to allow resources to be redeployed into areas experiencing high demand. A communications programme, in collaboration with the Department of Business Skills and Innovation, was run over the last two years to inform customers of the changes coming into force and how they would be affected.