Activity type factsheet 2024/25: Ancillary services
Published 18 March 2024
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This publication is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/2024-contract-profit-rate-assessment/activity-type-factsheet-202425-ancillary-services
Ancillary Services
Under the Defence Reform Act 2014, the SSRO must provide the Secretary of State with its defence contracts and qualifying sub-contracts. Part of the methodology is the categorisation of comparator companies into five activity types.
- Develop and Make
- Provide and Maintain
- Ancillary Services
- Construction
- Information Technology Services
The results of these groups are separately analysed and this fact sheet describes the Ancillary Services group results.
The baseline profit rate combines results from “Develop and Make” and “Provide and Maintain”, as set out in the Recommendation Factsheet. For further information on the methodology used to calculate these rates please see the Single Source baseline profit rate, capital servicing rates and funding adjustment methodology.
Ancillary services
Companies undertaking comparable activities considered as ‘ancillary services’ are expected to deliver either one of administrative, facilities or IT support activities. Companies undertaking these support services are not expected to bear any significant risks other than that of failing to provide the contracted outputs. This captures risk in relation to the delivery of the services, contract risk, procurement risk, staff risk and some quality control risk in respect of these activities.
Profit on cost of production
| 2020/21 | 2021/22 | 2022/23 | 2023/24 | 2024/25 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Underlying rate (unadjusted for capital servicing) | 4.19% | 5.86% | 7.13% | 4.59% | 5.58% |
| Capital servicing adjustment | -0.37% | -0.63% | -0.18% | -0.09% | -0.36% |
| Underlying rate | 3.82% | 5.23% | 6.95% | 4.50% | 5.22% |
| Rolling average* | 4.57% | 4.86% | 5.39% | 4.52% | 4.98% |
Note: The capital servicing adjustment accounts, at an aggregate level, for different levels of capital employed across the companies in the index and so sets a baseline upon which step 6 of the contract profit rate applies.
‘*’ A four-year average was used for 2022/23; a three-year average for pre-2022/23 and a three-year average (excluding 2022/23 underlying rate) for 2023/24 and 2024/25.
The pre-2020/21 underlying rates used for the three-year average were: 2018/19: 4.35% and 2019/20: 5.54%
Data sources
For further information on the data selection approach please see section 7 of the Single Source baseline profit rate, capital servicing rates and funding adjustment methodology. A company update search of the {Orbis database](https://www.bvdinfo.com/en-gb/our-products/data/international/orbis) was carried out on 1 November 2023 on data update number 342001 using software version 342. The financial data for the calculation was extracted from Orbis at the same time.
Median capital servicing adjusted return on cost of production
Proportion of Companies by country
Proportion of companies with defence keyword
Supplementary statistics
| Number of companies | 32 |
| of which profit making | 28 |
| Aggregate turnover (£billions) | £103 |
| Total capital employed (CE) (£billions) | £9.6 |
| Average company CP:CE ratio | 9.74 |
Source: Orbis (Cash figures shown in rounded GBP Billions)
Names of companies in the index
| ABM Industries INC |
| Antac Support Services LTD |
| Aramark |
| Automatic Data Processing, Inc. |
| Building Energy Services Group Limited |
| Bulloughs Cleaning Services Limited |
| Cliner SA |
| Cloudfm Group Limited |
| Compass Group PLC |
| Conduent Incorporated * |
| Coor Service Management Holding AB |
| DWF Group PLC |
| Firstservice Corporation |
| Glenthorp Limited |
| Grupo BN, Facility Services SA. |
| Healthcare Services Group INC |
| I3 Verticals, Inc. * |
| Iron Mountain INC |
| ISS A/S |
| Kinovo PLC * |
| Lacera Servicios Y Mantenimiento SA |
| Mears Group PLC |
| Mitie Group PLC |
| Paychex INC |
| Pedersen Contracting Services LTD |
| Rentokil Initial PLC |
| Restore PLC |
| Sarastia Oy |
| Serco Group PLC |
| Servicios de Mantenimiento Y Limpieza Castor SL * |
| Trinet Group, Inc. |
| Tyler Technologies INC |
‘*’ Indicates that the company is a loss-maker in the year.
(J) Indicates a company which was not in the activity group last year, but has been added this year.