§ Mr. KeyTo ask the Secretary of State for Defence how many service personnel are connected by the ARMYMAIL electronic mail system supplied by Bull Information Systems Ltd.; at what cost; and if he will make a statement. [133729]
§ Mr. Spellar[holding answer 23 October 2000]The ARMYMAIL electronic mail system was renamed the Electronic Messaging Service (EMS) in response to the wider tri-Service Defence community it now serves. The purpose of EMS is to provide a managed electronic mail interconnection service between separate information system communities in the Ministry of Defence (MOD). Subscription to EMS is on a communities-by-communities basis, and hence the number of potential users of the Service is the total number of users within each of the connected communities. There is currently a total of almost 82,000 members of the subscribing communities with the Army, RAF and MOD civilian organisations, including Defence agencies. The total cost of the service, paid to Bull Information Systems Ltd., is approximately £2.1 million per annum, based on the current usage.