The Stationery Office (TSO) has won a fiercely competitive print re-tender worth around 10m and is celebrating its fifth anniversary as a private firm.

It beat 20 rivals including some of the UKs top printers to do Parliamentary reports from 2pp legislation papers to bumper glossy reports.

"This makes us by far the biggest publisher on number of items produced," said chief operating officer Fred Perkins. "We produce up to 15,000 publications a year and can sometimes do over 40 a day."

The open OJEC tender was one of 20 key contracts TSO handled, he said. These include work for the House of Lords and Commons and regional parliaments. In total its contracts are worth 200m and it has successfully re-tendered for all the key ones.

In-house printers produce some of the material with the rest from 35 print firms from St Ives to small niche operators.

"Some of the jobs are too complex in time frames, quality and security for anyone but ourselves to do.

"We often have to make changes at 3am to a perfect-bound 1,000pp report due in thousands that morning. You must be intimately connected with the process. A single mistake can have a huge impact. Though Parliament goes into the early hours we are contractually bound to produce hard and electronic copy by 7.30am."

As well as pre-press kit, TSO runs an Oc digital press, a six-colour Heidelberg press and two Solna web presses. Contracts run for up to five years with two-year extensions possible.

Privatisation of HMSO activities in 1996 ushered in big changes to the 750-staff TSO, said Perkins.

"We are more a services business and move faster in electronic content management. We run departmental websites and manage information from beginning to delivery."

Story by Jez Abbott