Memorandum from Rt Hon Malcolm Wicks MP,
then Minister of State at the Department for Business, Enterprise
& Regulatory Reform
SEARCHABLE DATABASE
The Committees have, in their latest Report,
asked us to set out the timetable, functionality and operating
arrangements for the searchable database.
I am pleased to be able to tell the Committees
that we have now started development work on the database. Because
it will link to the SPIRE licence processing system, this needed
to await SPIRE development and implementation, as well as allowing
SPIRE to bed in. The concept has proved more complex technically
than initially envisaged and it is not yet possible to confirm
exactly when the database will be launched, but we hope this will
be in the first half of next year.
Full details of the functionality and operation
of the database will emerge in the development process, and I
will update the Committees on this early in 2009. However, I would
like to reassure the Committees that, as stated in the Government's
response to its 2007 recommendation, there will be no loss
of functionality or data: the searchable database will provide
licensing information to the same degree of detail as currently
provided in the Quarterly Reports, but will allow users to produce
bespoke reports to meet their needs, for example to produce reports
of aggregated details of licensing activity for non-standard time
periods, or to sort data by categories of equipment to see destinations
to which that category had been licensed.
I hope you will agree that this is a very significant
step forward in transparency. Closer to the date of launch, my
officials would be pleased to demonstrate the searchable database
to the Committees.
15 September 2008
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