§ Mr. FieldTo ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will list the IT projects his Department plans to undertake in the next year; and if he will state in each case the(a) expected date of commencement and completion and (b) cost. [151473]
§ Dr. Moonie[holding answer 26 February 2001]: A number of new Defence IT-related projects are planned to commence during the coming financial year. It is impracticable to list all new initiatives, but the most important is the Defence Information Infrastructure (DII), which will enter its initial assessment phase during 2001–02. This is planned to provide a computing infrastructure across the whole of Defence, and is an important step forward, since it represents a change from stand-alone IT projects to the development of a single Defence-wide computing infrastructure on which both office and business applications will be mounted. The DII is based on, and is planned to subsume, a number of related IT projects. Other business application projects being considered include DRUMM (material management capability), DSMS (Defence Supply Management System), P2P (Purchase to Payment, a component of the Defence e-Commerce programme) and SGIS (Surgeon General's system). All of these are in their formative stages, with completion expected over the next three years. Since contracts for these projects have yet to be awarded and are subject to commercial confidence, I am withholding the information under Exemption 13 of the Code of Practice on Access to Government Information.
§ Mr. FieldTo ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will list the IT projects currently undertaken in his Department; and if he will state the(a) expected completion date and (b) cost of each project. [151503]
§ Dr. Moonie[holding answer 26 February 2001]: Information Technology is a key component of many Ministry of Defence (MOD) projects, both large and small. Consequently the MOD has a large number of information-related systems in service, under development or planned. Many projects are relatively small and are undertaken within the delegations given to budget-holders and Defence agencies. Comprehensive records of these projects are not held centrally. As part of the MOD response to the McCartney report on improving Government IT projects, records are being compiled for medium to large-scale projects. Since these records include commercial in confidence details of projects, I am withholding the information under Exemption 13 of the Code of Practice on Access to Government Information. Some 45 projects are currently listed and work continues to complete the list and ensure that all useful data have been captured.