Annex B
TECHNICAL INFRASTRUCTURE
42. The original contract awarded in 1998
did not specify the number of PCs to be delivered. The supplier
was given the information needed to construct the bid, including
the number of users and locations. It became evident during the
re-negotiations leading to the revised contract in 2000 that the
supplier had underestimated the number. The 2000 version of the
contract did include the number of PCs to be delivered. This was
10,300. This figure is now 11,000, plus or minus 5%, and includes
additional laptops for remote access to the service. The contract
did not specify the specific office software set, only the facilities
required. Fujitsu selected Microsoft Office to meet those requirements.
The contract includes the training of all staff.
43. Modern office infrastructure used in
any corporation or department is far more than the desktop PCs.
It consists of a secure, resilient and supported network of servers,
workstations and communications equipment, which is centrally
managed and supported. The Libra Office Automation service comprises
such an infrastructure and office support products. In addition
to the 11,000 PCs (including laptops), it also includes just over
5000 printers to be delivered to the desktop, an increase of just
over 200 from the 2000 contract.
44. The PCs and printers are connected to
Local Area Networks that have been installed in each of the 400
sites, and each of these is connected to the data centres by a
Wide Area Network. The cabling, servers and communications equipment
are included in the service.
45. The servers are housed off-site at Fujitsu's
data centres. One data centre provides the service to all MCCs,
and a second data centre provides disaster recovery. All data
is backed-up by Fujitsu who handle such aspects as security and
disaster recovery.
46. The price also includes a full technology
refresh of the desktop equipment and upgrades of Microsoft products
in 2005.
47. Each PC has Microsoft Office and other
products installed, running under the Microsoft Windows 2000 operating
system. Each terminal is also connected to the existing main legacy
application allowing staff to process cases through the PC. A
number of enhancements have been included in the new deal, including
Internet Browsing for all staff, and integration with the police
fixed penalty system. Separately we are working on connection
to the Government Secure Intranet to provide secure e-mail facilities.
Delivery of these enhancements will enable the Department to meet
a key Government target to provide secure e-mail across the all
criminal justice organisations by the end of 2003.
48. The network is monitored by Fujitsu
to enable faults to be diagnosed quickly.
49. The key feature of the service is the
support provided by the supplier to MCCs in their day-to-day running
of the systems. The support includes the Help Desk, on-line diagnosis
of faults, replacement of faulty equipment, management of filestore
and network capacity, ensuring reliability and availability of
the service against contractual service levels (with service credits
accruing to MCCs where these levels have not been delivered).
50. The Office Automation service started
at the first MCC in October 2000. The rollout programme is around
86% complete, and will be concluded in the spring of next year.
The Department and MCCs have paid a total of £26 million
for the service up to 31 March 2002. The charges for this service
were agreed as part of the 2000 negotiations. They were set at
a level to ensure the supplier had an incentive to deliver the
core application and did not represent a commercially viable deal
for FS for the office automation service alone. To complete the
rollout of the Office Automation service, deliver the enhancements
and run the service to 31 March 2007, the costs are estimated
at £206 million, giving a total of £232 million. The
charging regime has been changed from a caseload base to a workstation/user
base.
51. An independent benchmarking exercise
was carried out which confirmed that this price is comparable
to that paid by other public and private sector organisations
of similar size and complexity. We used an external specialist
who builds a profile of the size and scope of the tasks and who
then uses his database of companies and departments to identify
similar installations and their costs. The FS costs (excluding
items such as cost of capital and risks which are excluded from
the comparison) were within the range of costs from the comparative
organisations.
Sir Hayden Phillips GCB
Permanent Secretary
Lord Chancellor's Department
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