Jonathan Reynolds
Main Page: Jonathan Reynolds (Labour (Co-op) - Stalybridge and Hyde)Department Debates - View all Jonathan Reynolds's debates with the Ministry of Defence
IT Systems (Army Recruitment)
Jonathan Reynolds Excerpts(10 years, 9 months ago)
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Mr Hammond
Outsourcing services is here to stay. At the cost that regular Army soldiers represent to us, we cannot contemplate using them to perform administrative tasks in the recruitment process in future. Those tasks must be outsourced to be sustainable. We are confident that Capita has a solution. At the outset of the contract, we chose not to adopt the Capita solution, but to go with extant departmental policy, which was to use the existing Atlas platform. We have now reversed that decision for the Army recruiting programme.
Jonathan Reynolds (Stalybridge and Hyde) (Lab/Co-op)
Based on the figures the Secretary of State has given today, the original decision to try to integrate the Atlas platform seems strange. When that decision was taken, was there no contingency plan? Given the history of trouble with Government IT projects and the importance of the project, what consideration was given to a contingency plan when the decision was taken?
Mr Hammond
The contingency plan was put in place and the fact that there was a risk was clearly recognised at the time. The contracts with both Capita and Atlas were written to allow for a reversion to a Capita-hosted solution if the Department decided that that was necessary. That is what we have done.