Tories attack over "failing" IT
systems
Sir Malcolm Rifkind, the Conservative work and pensions spokesman,
has criticised the Government for spending 2.2bn on "failing"
computer systems from one supplier, the Daily Mail reports. Sir
Malcolm said US-based IT contractor EDS had received the payments
over three years but its technology had "wreaked havoc" on the
Child Support Agency (CSA) in particular. EDS said it had a "near
perfect record" on government contracts.
Cable & Wireless to buy rival Energis for
594m
Cable & Wireless (C&W) is to buy rival telco Energis for
594m, beating late bidder Thus to the company. Energis customers
include AOL, BBC, IBM, Boots, Littlewoods, Centrica and DHL through
to the Government Secure Intranet (GSi). C&W is expected to cut
around 700 Energis jobs as a result of the takeover, which is
subject to Office of Fair Trading approval.
Co op inks deal for supply of ATM services
The Co-operative Bank has agreed a seven-year deal
for Wincor Nixdorf UK to supply the bank with end-to-end ATM
services. The bank has not revealed the value of the contract, but
it encompasses all of the bank's 2,400 ATMs, with Wincor Nixdorf
due to assume responsibility for maintenance and transaction
processing.
Police deploy online sex-offender
register
Every Police force in the UK now has access to a 50,000-strong
photographic database of violent and sex offenders. Home Office
minister Fiona Mactaggart, said, "The database will make it harder
for an individual to re-emerge undetected in another part of the
country." The deployment of the Visor (Violent and sex offenders'
register) system concluded when the Police Service of Northern
Ireland implemented the database in April this year.
Local councils opting for off-the -shelf solutions
Society of IT Management's (Socitm) latest Index of
Application Software has found that local authority IT depart-ments
are buying off-the-shelf software rather than developing in-house
systems. The study found there has been a decrease in the number of
authorities using in-house developed software. Only 7% now have
in-house developed software for their general ledger (16% in 2000).