£4bn MoD contract reaches next stage

The Ministry of Defence (MoD) has confirmed the shortlist for the £4bn 10-year Defence Information Infrastructure contract.

Four consortia will go forward to the next stage of the bidding process:

• Atlas - EDS, Fujitsu, Cogent, General Dynamics, LogicaCMG
• IBM - IBM, BAE Systems, Computacenter, Steria, NTL, Echelon
• Lockheed Martin - Lockheed Martin, Deloitte Consulting, HP, Qinetic, SAIC, Unisys
• RaDII - CSC, BT, Cap Gemini Ernst & Young, Thales e-security

  A maximum of three of the groups will go through to the final negotiation stage, starting in November.

  The MoD is committed to avoiding another government IT disaster, says Air Commander David Rennison, representing the project's Senior Responsible Owner.

  'IT projects are risky and have a patchy reputation so risk management is a key part of the DII programme. We are aiming to keep it simple and we are taking an incremental approach to help manage and mitigate the risks,' he said.

  The deal will be won on the basis of the consortium's ability to deliver the whole 10-year contract, but at the outset the MoD will only be committed for the first stage of the programme, due to be delivered in spring 2007.

  'We will proceed with increments two and three on the basis of the satisfactory performance of the delivery partner and the satisfactory direction of the project,' said commercial director Chris Church.

  'We like to think we are learning the lessons from other public procurements of IT systems,' he said.

  The MoD also retains the right to step in if it sees problems with the supplier.

  'We will negotiate provisions in the contract that will allow us to change the contract or the construction of the consortium if things are not going right,' said Church.