HC Deb 28 February 2003 vol 400 cc759-60W
Matthew Taylor

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will place the evaluations for the Capital Modernisation Fund projects relating to(a) Inland Revenue E-business gateway, (b) Inland Revenue unified reference validation, (c) Customs and Excise port surveillance, (d) Customs and Excise anti-drug surveillance radar, (e) Customs and Excise scanners and (f) Office of National Statistics "PAT 18: Better Information" in the Library. [97020]

Mr. Boateng

(a) The CMF funding for the Inland Revenue e-business gateway has been integrated into a number of projects, some of which are still in development and none of which have reached the stage when they would be considered for an evaluation review under the department's established criteria.

(b) The Inland Revenue Unified Reference Validation Project is still in its early stages. It is expected that the project will be completed in the 2003–04 Financial Year.

(c) The Customs and Excise Port Surveillance project is not due to be completed until 31 March 2004. No evaluation report is yet available.

(d) The Customs and Excise anti-drug surveillance radar project was terminated in February 2002 because of difficulties in meeting the requirements of the user specification. No further expenditure is planned on this project.

(e) The project to procure x-ray freight scanners for Customs and Excise has not yet been concluded, and a full evaluation report has therefore not been completed.

(f) As the Office for National Statistics' Neighbourhood Statistics project has not yet been concluded, no evaluation report has been completed.