§ Mr. WyattTo ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer how many and by how much Government Departments have overspent on their IT contracts since 1997. [98124]
§ Mr. BoatengThe information requested is not held centrally and could be obtained only at disproportionate cost.
§ Mr. SayeedTo ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will list IT contracts in his Department above £50 million in each of the last 10 years; what the inception date for each system was; when it became fully functional; when it became fully debugged; and what the cost of over-runs has been. [99005]
§ Ruth KellyOf the Chancellor's Departments, only the following have let IT contracts above £50 million in the last 10 years.
1. Inland Revenue
IR currently has major contracts with two strategic technology partners, EDS and Accenture, to provide its IT systems and support, including development and maintenance. It also has a framework contract with Computacenter for the supply of IT equipment and software.
(i) The IT services contract was let to EDS in 1994 for 10 years and is worth £2.4 billion over its lifetime, with an estimated £300 million to £400 million annual expenditure. The contract is input based (i.e. time and materials, not system specific). Its complex charging and price capping mechanism means that details of systems delivered through this contract could be provided only at disproportionate cost.
(ii) The NIRS 2 contract for operational services was awarded to Andersen Consulting (now Accenture) in May 1995 with an initial scheduled implementation in February 1997. The third phase of the project, introduced in July 1998, was not signed off as fully functional until April 2000. Compensation of £4.1 million was paid by the supplier for this delay. Significant Government and legislative changes resulted in the NIRS 2 contract being extended in April 2000 and the contract now runs to 2004.
2. HM Customs and Excise
HM Customs and Excise (HMCE) has let only one IT Contract in excess of £50 million in the past 10 years. The contract was awarded to Fujitsu C&E Services Ltd. under the Private Finance Initiative in 1999. The contract is for the provision of an outsourced IT and telephony infrastructure. The inception date was 25 August 1999 (the date the contract was signed). The date when it became fully functional is deemed as `Transfer of Undertaking', 1 April 2000, when the infrastructure and associated staff were transferred to Fujitsu Customs and Excise Services Ltd. As this is an IT Infrastructure service there was no debugging element and the Transfer of Undertaking date was achieved to target without any overrun.