To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs how many information technology projects within the responsibility of his Department, its agencies and their predecessors have been cancelled since 1997; what the total cost was of each project at cancellation; and if he will make a statement. (105484)

Details of the cancellation and costs of projects started before October 2004, when DEFRA formed a strategic partnership with IBM as providers of IT services, are not held centrally and the information could not be gathered without disproportionate costs from the many business units involved.

The only project cancelled since then was the roll out of Catalyst (an electronic document and records management system) which was halted in March 2006 in the light of the outcome of a pilot. The total cost of the project at cancellation was £12,642,000.