§ Mr. LidingtonTo ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department if he will make a statement on the nature and status of the Public Record Office projects which were to have been funded by revenue from the 1901 census on-line. [70852]
801W
§ Ms Rosie WintertonThe PRO did not take account of net income from the 1901 Census online service when assessing funding requirements for its other online projects. However, if there were to be any net income from the service, this would be used to fund the future digitisation of earlier census records.
§ Mr. LidingtonTo ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department (1) what proportion of the testing programme for the 1901 census website has been completed; [70854]
(2) whether a million users per hour test has been run on the 1901 census website; and if she will make a statement; [70857]
(3) when she expects the testing programme on the 1901 census website to be completed. [70858]
§ Ms Rosie WintertonQinetiQ Ltd, which is the contractor responsible for setting up the 1901 census online website and providing the online service, has been making technical improvements to it.
QinetiQ is currently testing the site and the Public Record Office is also carrying out its own independent test programme. By the very nature of testing, solutions to particular issues often require a more general retesting, to verify that there are no adverse effects on the system as a whole. It is therefore not feasible to quantify what proportion of the testing programme has been completed at any particular time. The Public Record Office's own independent test company has undertaken a test to simulate the experience of one million user per hour accessing the system. These results will be analysed along with the other test results as soon as they are available. The final testing is now under way and it is anticipated that this will be completed by the end of July.
§ Mr. LidingtonTo ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department (1) what changes QinetiQ has made to the 1901 census website; [70856]
(2) when QinetiQ started to make changes to the capacity of the 1901 census website; [70859]
(3) if she will make a statement on the ability of QinetiQ to put right the problems preventing public access to the 1901 census website. [71267]
§ Ms Rosie WintertonQinetiQ Ltd, who are responsible for the technical aspects of the service, have made the following technical improvements to the site:
increased ISP bandwidth;dedicated firewalls within the ISP, both to protect the 1901 census online site and also to avoid impact to other sites;improved load balancer configuration to divert overload;additional database server engine and the necessary configuration to enable operation with multiple database servers.QinetiQ has been working on the above enhancements to the site in order to improve its resilience and this should increase its ability to provide a good experience for more users. It will also enable a decision to be made as to whether the system is sufficiently robust to provide general online access. The final testing is under way and it is anticipated that this will be completed by the end of July.
802W
§ Mr. LidingtonTo ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department (1) if she will make the agendas and the minutes of the Public Record Office Online Services Advisory Panel available(a) in the Library and (b) on her Department's website; [70853]
(2) what date has been set for the next meeting of the Public Record Office Online Services Advisory Panel; what the present membership of the panel is; and if she will make a statement. [70855]
§ Ms Rosie WintertonThe minutes of the Public Record Office (PRO) Online Services Advisory Panel are available from the PRO website: http://www.pro.goli.uk/census/advisory.htm
These are usually published within one month of the last meeting.
The terms of reference of the advisory panel, listing the organisations from which the panel membership is drawn, can be found at this site. The agendas and current membership of the advisory panel are apparent from the published minutes. The next meeting of the panel will take place on 5 September 2002.
Arrangements are being made to place copies of the advisory panel's minutes and other papers in the Library.
§ Mr. LidingtonTo ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department (1) if she will make a statement on progress with the Public Record Office's plans to digitise the 1881 and 1891 censuses; [70947]
(2) if she will make it her policy to exclude QinetiQ from handling the project to digitise the 1881 and 1891 censuses. [70860]
§ Ms Rosie WintertonMaking the 1881 and 1891 censuses available in electronic form is a high priority for the Public Record Office because census records are very heavily used by family historians, who constitute its largest single user group. Any organisation can seek a non-exclusive licence to use digital images of material contained in public records on a commercial basis. Such licensing contracts do not constitute any form of partnership between that organisation and the Public Record Office. MyFamily.com has already applied for, and received, a licence to digitise the census returns from 1841 to 1891 and make this material available on the internet. Other organisations have sought non-exclusive licences to make CDs of the images of these censuses and some for the 1891 census are already on the market. It is open to QinetiQ Ltd to apply for, and to be granted, a licence in a similar manner.