The Foreign Office has cancelled a £23m knowledge
management project because it lacked adequate disaster recovery
provision.Foreign
secretary Jack Straw confirmed that the department had cancelled
its contract with Fujitsu Consulting, the prime software contractor
for the six-year Focus programme, despite having already spent £10m
on the project.
In a
ministerial statement, Straw identified "a considerable extra
investment in back-up and disaster recovery" needed following the
11 September terrorist attacks.
A Foreign
Office spokeswoman said, "We had already done the tendering process
for Focus and the business case was agreed in October [2001] - but
in light of 11 September, we had to look again at the issue of
disaster recovery."
However,
the final deal was signed in January 2002, four months after the 11
September attacks.
John
Mackie, senior consultant at outsourcing specialist Morgan
Chambers, said, "There should always be a disaster recovery
capability - it doesn't just apply to terrorist threats, it applies
to all circumstances whereby a user could lose their services
through an uncontrolled event."
"Disaster
recovery should be part of any IT project that involves
business-critical services," he added.
Focus, a
global knowledge management project, involved the development of an
intranet, directory and database system for the Foreign Office and
embassies.
The
department will retain a global electronic directory and a facility
for online discussion groups from the scheme and officials have
predicted that the directory will save £2.5m over the next five
years.
The
department has also retained a software licence bought as part of
the Focus programme. A spokesman for the Foreign Office said, "The
licence will allow us to have a web enterprise management system
that will enable the storage of documents in XML format that can be
accessed by staff from anywhere in the world."
The bulk
of the £9.5m spent on the project was for software development,
staff costs and the directory and discussion features.
Derek
Sayers, director of Fujitsu Consulting's Government Business, said,
"It was a very far-sighted system, that if it was implemented,
would have put the UK ahead of the rest of the world in embassy IT
systems.
"It's
disappointing that the money wasn't there to continue." he
added.