Parliament's expenses body spent £2.2m on IT
That'll teach 'em
What you need to know about cloud backup
The newly minted Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority has spent £2.2m on IT to get itself up and running, a commons answer revealed yesterday.
Bob Russell MP asked what services Calyx UK provided to the authority and whether it had considered other suppliers.
Charles Walker, representing the Speaker's Committee for the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority, relayed a letter from IPSA chief exec Andrew McDonald, which explained:
"The scope of the contract with Calyx UK Ltd and Calyx Managed Services Ltd covers infrastructure and enterprise software support.
"Infrastructure support includes server hardware, desktops and laptops, network hardware, office infrastructure, firewalls, anti-virus, web proxy and hosting services, Wide Area Network link, security solutions, email and telephony.
"Enterprise support includes software support for financial accounting, the online expense system, payroll, human resources and a relationship management system."
Apparently the tender was offered through OGC Buying Solutions, with three responses being received for the infrastructure contract, and three for the enterprise contract.
Up to 14 February, from its inception IPSA paid £2.22m to Calyx, McDonald said.
In January, IPSA said it had paid out more than £9m in MPs' expenses since the May election, and had "not reimbursed 2,000 claims with a collective value of £144,000".
The Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority was set up in the wake of the MPs' expenses scandal, to ensure transparency in the way payouts are handled. So now we know how much transparency costs. ®
COMMENTS
The Government/Public Sector refuses to follow its own Policy.
The published policy is that Free Software will be given equal consideration and evaluation and used unless there is some demonstrable reason why it can't be used. But in practice the public sector and all their outsourcing companies are so infested with Windows people that everything gets done in the most expensive and badly-designed way possible.
£2.2m ???
We 're talking about an expenses system for 650 people. While it might be a slight exaggeration to suggest that you could do that with a spreadsheet, if I couldn't deliver the system for < £1m pa and make at least a 40% margin on the deal, I'd quit IT.
Of course, I don't have to pay for the boxes at Wimbledon, Lords and Twickenham, plus dinners at Le Gavroche; so naturally I'll never get the business.
Seriously
Why the f**k aren't all public sector bodies forced to use one central payroll/HR function, that they get charged a nominal annual fee per person for?
IT infrastructure monitoring strategies
Agentless Backup is Not a Myth
Steps to Take Before Choosing a Business Continuity Partner
Enabling efficient data center monitoring
Requirements Checklist for Choosing a Cloud Backup and Recovery Service Provider
