Hilary Benn – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Communities and Local Government

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Hilary Benn on 2014-03-31.

To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what the status is of the ICT Relet Project; what costs his Department has incurred; and if he will make a statement.

Brandon Lewis

As I outlined to the rt. hon. Member in my answer to him of 29 January 2014, Official Report, Column 600W, the programme replaces computers which are seven years old, and also upgrades the systems from Windows XP which is no longer being formally supported by Microsoft with security patches.

The last Administration failed to get value for taxpayers’ money due to poor management of IT contracts. Indeed, the Department published a contract tender in December 2009 for a desktop IT programme costing up to £160 million. This was subsequently cancelled under this Government as part of our wider reduction in departmental spending and reconfiguration of IT procurement policy.

The fact that we have delivered a 40 per cent saving on our IT costs is an example of how all parts of the public sector can deliver sensible savings through better procurement.