PRIVATISATION OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY IN THE MINISTRY OF DEFENCE

Early day motion 1881, tabled 22 March 2006 by John McDonnell (Labour). Signed by 44 members.

That this House expresses its concern at the proposals of the Defence Information Initiative to award the bulk of a £1 billion contract for the provision of IT support and infrastructure in the Ministry of Defence (MoD) without going through a full competitive tendering process or consideration of an in-house bid; notes that the major company within the ATLAS consortium is EDS, a company with a long history of failure in delivering public sector IT projects; believes that as the current MoD contract involves battlefield deployed and secret military IT systems any failure with these systems could have a devastating effect on UK military operations; and therefore calls on the Secretary of State to ensure that the rest of the contract specifically dealing with IT support is subject to a full risk analysis and full competitive tendering process, including consideration of an in-house option.

Signatures by party: Labour 31, Liberal Democrat 9, Conservative 1, Independent 1, Plaid Cymru 1, Scottish National Party 1.