(2) what assessment he has made of the implementation of the Defence and Communication Services Agency's information technology project; whether he plans to establish an independent review of the programme; and if he will make a statement;
(3) what the role of the ATLAS consortium was in the information technology rationalisation link; what the cost was of the Defence Information Infrastructure final solutions programme; and how many contractors were employed in its implementation.
Defence information infrastructure (Future) (DII(F)) is a £4 billion programme over 10 years, which will provide a single, coherent information infrastructure across defence. Its implementation, on an incremental basis, will underpin MOD’s change programme and modernising Government agenda.
The ATLAS Consortium (comprising EDS Defence Ltd as the principal contractor, with Fujitsu, General Dynamics, EADS and Logica CMG as key sub-contractors) was awarded the DII(F) contract on 21 March 2005 for a period of 10 years following full and open competition. The contract is subject to incremental commitment and implementation and at contract award the Department committed to the first increment only for the provision of a fully networked and managed IT service to around 70,000 user access devices and 200,000 users around the world. The contract was amended on 29 December 2006 to incorporate a second planned increment (2a) which will provide for nearly 44,000 additional user access devices and 58,000 user accounts in support of the defence change programme and other identified business priorities. This amendment was made in the light of an assessment of ATLAS' performance in supplying increment 1 up to that point in its delivery schedule. The number of employees within the consortium is a matter for them but it is of the order of 2000, on average.
The number of consultants employed by MOD on the DII(F) project has varied and will continue to vary across the life of the project. As a result, the precise information requested together with the associated expenditure can be provided only at disproportionate cost, when looked at over the total life of the programme from its inception. The total budget for consultants approved to date under the DII programme is £57.5 million (rounded) since the inception of the programme, including work during the concept and assessment phases, leading up to the main competition and subsequently for later increments. As at 18 April 2007 the number directly employed on the project was 164.
Throughout its life, the DII(F) project has been subject to regular review under the Office of Government Commerce gateway review procedure. Those reviews confirmed that the project is proceeding satisfactorily. As a result, I see no need for a further strategic review of the project at this time; the case for it remains valid and the contracted increments are proceeding within budgetary provision.
(2) how much was spent by the Defence and Communication Services Agency on external management consultants in each of the last five years; and if he will make a statement.
It is not possible to provide the number of consultants employed as we do not “employ” consultants on an individual basis—we contract with private consultancy companies for a service to provide clearly defined deliverables on agreed packages of work within specified timescales. The procurement of such consultancy assistance from the private sector is called “external assistance”. However, the following table details the cost of engaging external assistance by the Defence Communication Services Agency—now DEandS Information Systems and Services—over the past five years.
£ million 2002-03 20.538 2003-04 27.478 2004-05 33.922 2005-06 34.702 2006-07 124.767 1 This reflects the last forecast of outturn for financial year 2006-07 as at October 2006. Final figures not expected before early May 2007.