Services supplier CSC is expected to take over about 350 IT
staff, and will help build new passport and ID Card systems, after
winning a 10-year £385m contract this week.
CSC beat Fujitsu which had been shortlisted for the
contract.
It means that CSC will later this month begin to take over the
running of the Oracle-based Passport Application Support System
from Siemens which has been running the technology since 1999.
Under TUPE regulations about 350 staff, most of them working for
Siemens, are expected to transfer to CSC. Some were civil servants
when they transferred to Siemens in 1999. As part of its deal CSC
will take over the running of the passport service's desktop
systems from Atos.
Under the new contract CSC will replace the
Passport Application Support System which officials say is at
risk of becoming increasingly unstable. It is based on technology
which is more than 10 years old.
IT-related disasters followed the introduction of new passport
systems in 1989 and again in 1999. But James Hall, Chief Executive
of the Identity and Passport Service, says that the mistakes have
been learned. He told Computer Weekly that this time the
introduction of new systems would be phased in between now and
2012.
He said: "I have read several times the
1999 Public Accounts Committee report on what went wrong. Those
are a set of mistakes we'd prefer to avoid making."
Passport officials had tried to roll out new and more secure -
but slower - technology to regional passport offices without
learning from mistakes. The result was a queue of 565,000
applications and some applicants had to cancel holidays.
Bill Crothers, CIO at the Identity and Passport Service, said
that CSC will begin to shadow the running of passport systems later
this month - although Siemens will continue to have responsibility
for the system until its contract expires on 5 October 2009. This
should ensure a smooth transition from one supplier to another, he
said.
CSC will also build a more advanced system to allow people to
apply for passports online after the Government scrapped the failed
Electronic Passport Application System, known as
EPA2, in 2006.
The Identity and Passport Service has awarded a separate
contract to IBM for £265 over 10 years to supply the National
Biometric Information Service, which will store fingerprints and
pictures of faces for ID Cards. Thales had been shortlisted.
Under its new contract IBM will take over the Immigration
Automated Fingerprinting System [IAFS] from French company Sagem
which has been running the system for the UK Border Agency. IBM is
expected to replace IAFS by the end of 2011.
Crothers said that the Identity and Passport Service will now
try to mesh the work of IBM and CSC.
Links:
Another grand project?
Passport IT troubles bode ill for ID Cards