Ministry of Defence
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Public Accounts Committee Report - the Defence Information Infrastructure (DII)

Public Accounts Committee Report - the Defence Information Infrastructure (DII)

MINISTRY OF DEFENCE News Release (008/2009) issued by COI News Distribution Service. 15 January 2009

The Defence Information Infrastructure (DII) is a major IT programme which is already delivering benefits to the UK's front-line troops and to the wider Ministry of Defence (MoD). It is one of the largest IT projects in Europe and will provide a single, secure and coherent computer infrastructure across the whole of Defence while maintaining essential operational continuity.

Today's PAC report acknowledges that the performance of the DII programme has improved.

Commenting on the report, MOD Permanent Secretary, Sir Bill Jeffrey said:

"The DII programme is one of the largest in Government. It has taken longer to deliver then we had intended, but it is being rolled out across the Department and is already delivering benefits. We are confident that remaining problems will be overcome, with the help of our commercial partners in the Atlas consortium. We have already overcome some complex challenges, and have learned the lessons of the early stages of the project. As the PAC report notes, the commercial structure of the programme is robust, and costs have been kept within 3% of the original budget."

The DII programme is on track to enable benefits of £1.5 billion over 10 years and has already delivered:

* Improvements to the operation of existing MOD systems;

* delivery of two early new capabilities to forces in Afghanistan;

* introduction of "Single Point Of Contact" help desk facilities providing an improved service to MoD users;

Notes to Editors:

1. The DII Programme will deliver a single, secure, coherent and high quality computer infrastructure service across the whole of defence: 300,000 users, 140,000 terminals across 2,000 sites worldwide. The current contract runs to 2015 with all new major capabilities in place by 2010.

2. The recent National Audit Office report recognised the progress of the DII programme. In its July report the NAO noted that the programme performed well against the checklist in the Comptroller and Auditor General's 2006 report, Delivering Successful IT-Enabled Business Change. In the Comptroller and Auditor General's report, Delivering Successful IT-Enabled Business Change, (HC 33-I, 17 November 2006), a checklist of nine questions was provided to assist Departments embarking on major IT programmes.

3. In line with OGC principles, MOD believes that the chief measure of a programme should be the benefits it delivers and although late delivery of DII terminals has resulted in delay to the introduction of some more efficient and effective ways of working, the programme continues to enable financial benefits across the department and has successfully delivered early capability to frontline troops.

4. In spite of rollout delays the associated benefits through other programmes remain in the order of £1.5Bn over the 10 year programme and the DII Programme has constrained cost increases to 3%.

5. The DII concept allows for users to logon at any site worldwide, reducing the need to physically transport data thereby addressing some of the data handling challenges which the Dept faces.

6. For more information contact Darragh McElroy in the MoD Press office on 020 7218 7909 or visit the website http://www.mod.uk.

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