Kevan Jones – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Defence

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Kevan Jones on 2014-06-12.

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, with reference to the National Audit Office report, Army 2020, HC 263, published on 11 June 2014, page 30, if he will provide a breakdown of the extra £70 million in costs that will be borne by his Department for the decision to revert to a hosting environment provided by Capita as part of the Recruiting Partnering Project.

Anna Soubry

My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence (Philip Hammond) set out on 14 January 2014 (Official Report, column 716) the cost of Capita providing a new Information Technology platform as part of the Recruiting Partnering Project. At the time, these costs were expected to be around £47.7 million directly linked to the change of hosting provision. Since this statement, the £47.7 million has reduced to £42.9 million.

As previously stated by the Secretary of State on 14 January, there has been an additional cost of around £1 million per month to run the Capita system. This includes costs for additional manpower.

The Recruiting Partnering Project remains within the overall agreed cost of £1.360 billion.