MoD awards £540m extension to DII

The Ministry of Defence has agreed to the next phase of its Defence Information Infrastructure programme, provided by HP's Atlas Consortium.

DII increment 3a, which the MoD agreed to on 18 December 2009, will involve 42,000 more computer terminals working with restricted and secret material at permanent MoD sites, replacing old hardware, according to defence minister Quentin Davies. It will also provide enhanced capability to 60,000 personnel, particularly within the Royal Air Force and at Joint Helicopter Command.

Davies told Parliament on 19 January 2010 that the cost of the whole programme, which will provide secure desktop computing to around 300,000 military personnel and MoD staff, remains unchanged at £7.1bn. He added: "DII is on track to deliver estimated benefits to the department in excess of £1.6bn over the 10 years of the contract."

In January 2009, Parliament's Public Accounts Committee criticised the Atlas consortium, which is led by HP, for DII's lateness: at that point it was more than 18 months behind schedule. It added that there had been particular delays in providing a version that could handle secret material.

In February 2009, the MoD agreed to an extra £191m deal, increment 2c, for a version of DII that could handle particularly sensitive material.

The Atlas Consortium also includes Fujitsu, EADS Defence and Security Systems, General Dynamics and Logica.

This article was originally published at Kable.

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