§ Mr. Edward DaveyTo ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department what trigger points exist in the contract for the 1901 Census website for the Public Record Office to end the contract with QinetiQ for failure to meet their contractual obligations. [51563]
§ Ms Rosie WintertonOfficials in the PRO are in very frequent contact with their contractors QinetiQ Ltd, with a view to relaunching the online service as soon as this is practicable. There are a number of trigger points contained in the contract, but at the present time the PRO is concentrating its efforts on monitoring and evaluating the enhancement and testing work being carried out by QinetiQ on the census website. The PRO's top priority is to ensure that the relaunched service provides a consistently good service to users.
861W
§ Mr. Edward DaveyTo ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department what estimate the Department has for the date for the re-launch of the 1901 Census website. [51561]
§ Ms Rosie WintertonQinetiQ Ltd is continuing to work on the technical enhancements, which are intended to make the site sufficiently robust to permit general Internet access and are being conducted with a sense of urgency. Once configuring of the technical enhancements is complete, rigorous testing will be undertaken on all aspects of the system. However, the most important consideration is to ensure that the service is re-launched successfully. The system will again be made available to designated service centres as part of the general re-introduction of the site. General on-line searches will be available as soon as practicable following testing and availability at the service centres.
§ Mr. GibbTo ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department if he will make a statement on the availability of the 1901 Census online. [53604]
§ Ms Rosie WintertonI refer the hon. Member to the answers I have given on several occasions, and most recently to the hon. Member for Slough on the 12 April 2002,Official Report, column 647W.