Prisons: ICT

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what the information technology budget was for HM Prison Service in each of the last five years; and if he will make a statement. (125308)

The costs in the following table were made for the core and legacy information technology infrastructure for HMPS:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what the ratio is of computer terminals to (a) uniformed staff and (b) all prison staff; and if he will make a statement. (125309)

At 31 January 2007 there were 33,395 full-time equivalent (FTE) staff in officer and operational support grades. These are staff who would normally be expected to wear a uniform. The total FTE staff in post on this date was 47,878.

The number of computer terminals on the core and legacy IT infrastructure at 31 January 2007 was 24,559 which included 20,532 located in HMPS establishments.

The ratio of computer terminals to total staff is 1:1.95.

It is not possible to analyse this ratio further as records are not kept of access to IT services by staff grade.

Staff in post figures have been derived from the Personnel Corporate Database and Oracle HRMS. These systems are subject to the normal inaccuracies associated with any large-scale reporting system.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what estimate he has made of the average annual cost of each computer terminal used in HM Prison Service; and if he will make a statement. (125312)

The average annual cost of each computer terminal on the Prison Service core and legacy network over the life of the contract is £1,595 per annum. An independent assessment conducted in 2002 found that the cost of Quantum Infrastructure Services compared favourably to similar contracts.