The Ministry of Defence expects to save £600m over 10 years
with a joint personnel administration system covering all UK armed
forces to be built by global IT services company
EDS.
The system, to be built for the Armed Forces Personnel
Administration Agency, will serve the Royal Navy, the RAF and the
Army and will replace standalone systems for these forces from
2006/2007.
The system will be developed under the terms of a £300m contract
signed between EDS and the MoD in 1997 that runs until 2009.
The joint personnel administration system is part of the MoD's
Defence Change Programme, which the government believes could
become a benchmark for future relationships between the public
sector and the IT supplier community.
The prospect of failure in the 12-year public finance initiative
contract caused the MoD to renegotiate terms with EDS in 2001. At
the time, Malcolm Pledger, deputy chief of defence staff
(personnel) said there had been a "failure" of the original
contract.
As a result, the contract required "substantial reconstruction" as
the two sides sought to improve the timeliness, accuracy and cost
of handling the pay and pensions of hundreds of thousands of
British service personnel.