§ Mr. PicklesTo ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions what was the cost of the current computer system installed in(a) the 232W Department of the Environment and (b) the Department of Transport; to what extent the two systems were compatible; and what is the cost of enabling the two systems to work together. [28889]
§ Angela EagleThe cost to install the existing office automation (OA) systems in the Department of the Environment was £7.55m, and in the Department of Transport was £6.29m. The new office automation system is effectively a merger of the two existing systems using the best aspects of each and the estimated cost is £3.6m. Incompatibilities existed between the two systems at technical, user, document interchange and the cultural level. Although both systems used similar technology there were a number of differences in the detail of their technical architectures.