Whitehall focus MoD imposes IT failure clause on bid

13 Jan 05
The Ministry of Defence has forced one of the government's biggest IT partners to include a last-minute 'failure' clause in its bid for a £4bn contract, following a series of Whitehall computer mishaps.

14 January 2005

The Ministry of Defence has forced one of the government's biggest IT partners to include a last-minute 'failure' clause in its bid for a £4bn contract, following a series of Whitehall computer mishaps.

EDS, the US-based IT company responsible for a massive computer meltdown at the Department for Work and Pensions last year, has revealed it is subject to the unprecedented clause as part of its bid to win the MoD's ten-year Defence Information Infrastructure (DII) contract.

EDS is part of the Atlas consortium competing with another group, Radii, for the contract. It will be the second-largest IT deal in Whitehall history, behind the NHS's troubled electronic records project. The winning bid will be announced in February.

Graham Lay, EDS's defence managing director, said that as part of the Atlas bid, the MoD could relieve his company from its responsibilities and appoint one of its consortium partners, Fujitsu Services, to undertake the work, 'if the system crashes and EDS is deemed incompetent'.

Lay added: 'We support the MoD's assessment that diversity of supply, and avoiding a single point of failure, is imperative to the success of this procurement.'

The MoD would not comment on the clause, but Whitehall insiders told Public Finance it was in response to IT problems across departments in 2003/04, including the DWP failure last November. Over 80% of DWP staff could not access their network after an EDS employee attempted a software upgrade on unsuitable computers.

EDS, which was also criticised following tax credits problems at the Inland Revenue in 2003, is not the only company to have experienced difficulties with public contracts. Fujitsu Services is the new name for ICL, the firm behind the Libra project to upgrade magistrates' networks – which was dogged by £130m cost escalations and heavily criticised by the National Audit Office.

One Whitehall source said: 'This latest development shows that senior managers are beginning to learn the lessons of past IT problems. Insisting on the sort of clause that EDS has agreed to, when bidding for important and sensitive contracts, is sensible.'

The DII initiative would merge the armed forces' computer networks, allowing the Army, Navy and Royal Air Force to improve the co-ordination of campaigns. It would involve around 150,000 computers and more than 300,000 staff, and save more than £900m by 2008.

Scottish civil service rises by 2,300 staff

The number of civil servants in the Scottish Executive and its agencies has increased by 2,300 since devolution, it was disclosed this week.

The rise of nearly 18% between April 1997 and April 2004 was reported to the Scottish Parliament's finance committee, which is planning a submission to the Commons' public administration select committee inquiry into the effectiveness of the civil service.

The finance committee was told that 15,200 civil servants were employed in the Scottish Executive and its agencies at April 2004, compared with 12,900 in the former Scottish Office at April 1997.

Some of this increase can be explained by the creation of new agencies and the reclassification of staff to the civil service from other parts of the public sector.

These include staff of the former housing agency, Scottish Homes, who were transferred to a new executive agency, Communities Scotland, in 2001.

The total number of civil servants in Scotland, including UK departments north of the border, is 46,300 full-time equivalents, the MSPs were told. Of the UK departments, the most significant numbers are employed in the Department for Work and Pensions (12,900), Inland Revenue (7,900) and the Ministry of Defence (7,200).

According to the paper, the number of civil servants in the UK peaked at 751,000 in 1976 and declined steadily through the 1980s and 1990s to reach a low of 460,000 in 1999. Since then, the numbers have increased, reaching 523,600 by April 2004.

The finance committee will now prepare evidence for the PASC after agreeing with a suggestion by convener Des McNulty that it should examine any 'potential gap' in the scrutiny of the civil service.

Working when ill could cut lifespan, says study

Civil service staff who struggle into work when they are ill risk shortening their lives, as well as prolonging their condition, new research suggests.

A study of both public and private sectors by University College, London has found that even working with a common cold can be harmful. It suggested that the stress caused by working while ill could increase the risk of heart disease.

The study, endorsed by the British Heart Foundation, is likely to concern department managers who are under pressure from the Treasury to reduce sickness absence across the public sector. Criticism followed the publication last year of figures showing that absenteeism is higher in the public sector (4.3% of the working year) than in private industries (3.4%).

But UCL researchers compared attendance rates with the health records of 10,000 civil servants and found that between 30% and 40% of those who did not take time off when ill had double the incidences of coronary disease.

Author Sir Michael Marmot said workers did not realise the damage they were doing. 'Far from contributing to their companies or spreading a few germs around the office, they could be hastening their own deaths,' he warned.

PFjan2005

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