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24 Mar 2003 : Column 95W—continued
IT Contracts
Mr. Sayeed: To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department if she will list IT contracts in the Department above £50 million in each of the last 10 years; what the inception date for each system was; when it became fully functional; when it became fully debugged; and what the cost of over-runs has been. [99004]
Yvette Cooper: The information is as follows:
LOCCS (various court-based IT systems): The EDS (LOCCs) contract was awarded to EDS in September 1996, to provide IT systems to Crown and county courts. The lifetime cost of the contract is assessed at £124 million, and expenditure in 2001–02 totalled £33 million.
The initial rollout of equipment to courts was completed in August 2001. The contract was fully functional from award. The contract includes
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provisions to test software prior to release, and to fix software 'bugs' which are attributable to supplier software.
The LOCCS rollout was completed to time, and subsequent major work programmes have been delivered to time.
ARAMIS (Resource Accounting and Management Information System): This is a PFI contract for the provision of accounting, financial, HR/payroll and management information services. It was awarded in December 1997 and runs until January 2007. Its current anticipated life-time cost is £192 million, which includes enhancements to the service.
Most services have IT elements and are delivered across an IT infrastructure provided through the contract. However, the IT system elements of the contract are not separated out from the main business functions. All the services are being provided within the lifetime of the contract, and major work programmes
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have been delivered to time. Debugging of the IT system elements is a process which continues through the lifetime of the contract.
Libra (magistrates courts IT systems): The contract signed in July 2002 varied from the original contracts. It included the provision of Libra infrastructure and Office Automation only. These have been successfully rolled out to over 90 per cent. of the magistrates courts. Five (of 42) MCCs remain in the rollout programme and these will be completed by spring 2003. The Office Automation software consists of 'off-the-shelf' Microsoft Office software which does not require debugging.
The original contracts for Libra included provision for a bespoke case management software application for magistrates courts. This is now being sourced through two other contracts, the combined value of which is expected to be £86 million. These contracts include provisions to test the software prior to release, and to fix software "bugs" which are attributable to supplier software.
The contract with Fujitsu Services for the delivery of Libra has been varied twice since initial completion in December 1998. This has resulted in changes to the baseline making it inappropriate to compare spend to date across an original and two variants of the contract. The actual spend against the contract can be summarised as follows:
- Original ICL Contract Dec 1998: Total contracted charges expected to arise over contract life of 10.5 years—£184 million.
Negotiated ICL Contract May 2000: Total contracted charges expected to arise over contract life of 14.5 years—£319 million
Negotiated Fujitsu Services Contract July 2002: Total contract charges expected to arise over contract life of 8.5 years—£232 million
Libra Project
Mr. Hawkins: To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department, what the costs of her Department's Libra project are (a) as originally estimated and (b) as currently planned. (97711)
Yvette Cooper: The costs of the Libra project are set out in the National Audit Office's report: "New IT systems for Magistrates Courts: The Libra project" published on 29 January 2003 as ISBN:0102920362. Officials gave evidence on this report to the Public Accounts Committee on 10 February 2003.
The headline costs are published in the report and show the original total project cost as at December 1998 to be £194 million. The fully delivered project is expected to cost £390 million. This £390 million breaks down as:
- Contract costs: £318 million (£232 million for the infrastructure contract with Fujitsu Services and an estimated £86 million for the two separate contracts for core application services and system integration.
Internal project costs: £12 million
Additional costs: £60 million (required for staff, legal and procurement advisers, costs for migration, extended legacy system costs and other enhancements to the infrastructure service which are yet to be contracted for)
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WORK AND PENSIONS
Low-income Families
Mr. Frank Field: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions when the Office of National Statistics took responsibility for providing data on low income families. [98679]
Malcolm Wicks: There has been no change in responsibilities for data on low income families. The latest edition of Households Below Average Income statistics was published on Thursday 13 March at 9.30 am by the Department for Work and Pensions.
The Office for National Statistics announces release dates of National Statistics series produced by all Government Departments, in the monthly ONS publication 'Updates'.
Post Office Card Accounts
Tim Loughton: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many people have been registered for Post Office card accounts. [100448]
Malcolm Wicks: As at 21 February 2003, a total of 77,648 customers have requested a Post Office card account.
Mr. Robathan: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions if he will make a statement on the decision to delay the issue of personal invitation documents for the post office card account. [91139]
Mr. Webb: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (1) for what reason the distribution of automated credit transfer personal invitation letters was delayed; [91292]
- (2) when (a) tax credit and (b) benefit claimants will be able to use the Post Office card account. [91293]
Malcolm Wicks: As my right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State, set out in his written answer of 3 December 2002 to the hon. Member for Twickenham (Dr. Cable), Official Report, columns 735–36W, the Government have decided to build up the number of benefit customers and pensioners that we pay through the Post Office card account gradually, starting from April 2003. This is to ensure that the systems supporting the Post Office card account are reliable and robust, and have proved themselves in live running, before we start to pay large numbers of customers through them. My Department's current plans for issuing Personal Invitation Documents meet our intention that, subject to acceptance of the card account service, we can start to pay some people through the Post Office card account from April 2003.
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The Inland Revenue plan to start to issue Personal Invitation Documents to tax credit customers at an appropriate point of few months after April 2003. Once tax credit customers have received their Personal Invitation Documents they will then be able to complete the Post Office application form for a card account. Tax credit customers who have a Post Office card account for their DWP benefits can start to use it for their tax credits immediately.
None of this will affect people's choices, and in the intervening period until they receive their Personal Invitation Documents, tax credit customers opting for a Post Office card account will be paid by giro and DWP customers by order book or giro.
Automated Credit Transfer
Mr. Webb: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what plans he has to publish the results of the Operational Readiness Review of the transfer of benefit payments to automated credit transfer. [91289]
Malcolm Wicks: The gated review process within the Department allows for a number of formal reviews. These reviews will ensure that senior officers obtain qualitative information to determine the readiness of the project to proceed to implementation of the changes. The outcomes of the reviews are working documents and there are currently no plans to publish these reports.
Benefit Fraud
Mr. Andrew Turner: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions if he will make a statement on (a) the objectives of the forthcoming media campaign against benefit fraud and (b) its planned budget. [101552]
Malcolm Wicks: The Targeting Fraud campaign is part of our long-term strategy to underline our message that benefit fraud will not be tolerated.
Evaluation shows that public attitudes are moving in the right direction as a result of the campaign. We have adapted our strategy to keep messages fresh as we respond to the evaluation of the advertising. We will be considering the future development of the campaign in the light of the evaluation of the latest phase, which ran from September 2001 to March 2002.
Expenditure on the pilot phase of the campaign was £2.2 million spanning the financial years 1999–2000 and 2000–01. The initial spell of national advertising in March 2001 cost £4.6 million and £8.9 million was spent on the campaign running from September 2001 to March 2002.
Kevin Brennan: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many individual cases of benefit have been written off in the last five years; and what their financial value was. [98426]
Malcolm Wicks [holding answer 25 February 2003]: As part of our strategy to reduce losses from fraud and error and improve the collection of debt, in April 2001 we established the Debt Management organisation within the Department. The key priorities of Debt Management include achieving an increase in overall recoveries and a long-term reduction in debt stocks, and
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improving the financial control of processes and the overall efficiency of debt organisation through the establishment of specialised Debt Centres.
In the financial year 2001–02 approximately 102,000 individual overpayments with a total value of £54 million were written off for a variety of reasons, including cases where recovery would have caused excessive hardship, or would not have been cost effective.
In addition, under the easement package agreed with HMT approximately 390,000 overpayments worth approximately £95 million that were identified as non recoverable from the outset were written off on the basis of an average value rather than an actual calculation. Information for earlier years is not available.
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