Angus Robertson – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Defence

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Angus Robertson on 2014-06-11.

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, for what reason the initial estimate of the additional costs of reverting to the fallback position of a hosting solution provided by Capita for the Recruiting Partnering Project increased from £47.7 million to £70 million; and who was responsible for these estimates.

Anna Soubry

My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence (Philip Hammond) set out on 14 January 2014 (Official Report, column 716) the cost of Capita providing a new Information Technology platform as part of the Recruiting Partnering Project. At the time, these costs were expected to be around £47.7 million directly linked to the change of hosting provision. Since this statement, the £47.7 million has reduced to £42.9 million.

As previously stated by the Secretary of State on 14 January, there has been an additional cost of around £1 million per month to run the Capita system. This includes costs for additional manpower.

The Recruiting Partnering Project remains within the overall agreed cost of £1.360 billion.