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CONSTITUTIONAL AFFAIRS
Libra Project
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs (Mr. Christopher Leslie): The House was informed in July 2002 that the Libra project would be delivered by way of three separate contracts. The delivery of the infrastructure underpinning the system was contracted to Fujitsu Services until 2006–07 at the time of that announcement. I can inform the House that the remaining contracts are now in place. Accenture (UK) Ltd, has today been awarded a five year, £38.5 million contract to deliver a service using specialised software for case management and tracking, payment of fines and court administration to the magistrates' courts in England and Wales. Case management seeks to speed up the courts process by implementing better ways of working. The contract to develop and support the special software was awarded
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in January 2003 to STL Technologies, part of the Technology Group. That five year contract is worth £35 million.
INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT
Montserrat
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for International Development (Mr. Gareth Thomas): Further to written statements on 17 July 2003 and 15 September 2003, Official Report, columns 86WS and 42WS by my right hon. Friend the (then) Minister of State for International Development and me respectively, DFID has continued to work closely with the Montserratian authorities to alleviate the impact
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upon the island community of the volcanic activity which affected Montserrat between 12 and 14 July this year.
I can now confirm that an additional £3.5 million in budgetary assistance has been made available to the Government of Montserrat (GoM) to fund Montserrat's ash clearing assistance programme (ACAP). The programme, designed jointly by DFID and GoM, entails clearance of the volcanic ash from residential and business properties as well as from roads and public facilities. We have contracted a manager for the programme, who is responsible for overall co-ordination of the ash clearing exercise. His work includes liaison with key GoM staff to ensure that management of equipment, staffing, materials and other resources is coordinated effectively.
DFID's total budget for Montserrat in the current financial year, including this latest additional provision, is now more than £23 million.