§ Mr. WyattTo ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs how much the overspend was on its new IT system; and what fee was paid to consultants on the new IT systems. [82532]
§ Mr. Rammell[holding answer 25 November]: The FCO's major IT system is Firecrest, developed and delivered by FCO Services since 1997, providing a modern office-wide system to over 10,000 staff in the UK and overseas. The initial programme was expanded over time, and revised budgets approved in step. The total capital costs to date are £106 million compared with initial estimates totalling £118 million. Annual running costs are now around £19 million. The confidential version of this should be completed on budget by mid-2003.
Using this infrastructure, two programmes, Prism and Focus, are being developed. The aim of Prism is to provide an integrated world-wide financial and management accounting and human resources system. The planned expenditure for the programme from inception to the expiry of the contract in early 2009 was £80 million (including a £53 million contract with CGEY). This estimate has now risen to £90 million. Expenditure so far has been £28.3 million, in line with the planned budget. Focus is a programme designed to provide the FCO with a new global registry and intranet, allowing more efficient management, sifting, storage and retrieval of information. A contract for £10.5 million was awarded to Fujitsu in January 2002, as part of an initial budgeted cost of 23 million over six years. This estimate has now risen to £42 million because of the increased scope of the project. Given the scale of this increase and other relevant factors the Secretary of State is conducting an urgent review of the whole future of this programme. A further announcement will be made as soon as possible.