Q11 Chairman: Mr Field, I think we need to develop that, if you wish. I am not entirely sure after that answer either, but I think other members can come back to that. Mr Lewis, I have come to the end of my questioning now and summing up. Given the problems that this Bureau has clearly suffered from, are you satisfied that the public and particularly vulnerable people are getting the protection that they need from this Bureau?
Mr Lewis: I am satisfied that the Bureau is now operating much more effectively than it was in its early weeks and months. I am satisfied that overall it is now delivering a much more effective service than the previous arrangements before it was created. I am not at all satisfied that the standard of service which it provided in its early weeks or months was satisfactory.
Q12 Chairman: We now know that it was a very poor launch. Obviously ministers came to officials, quite rightly, it is a policy point, and said they wanted to have more protection for the vulnerable. We now know there was not a proper pilot study. We know all the problems that existed. Did none of your officials warn ministers that perhaps it should have been rolled out more slowly, there should have been more care, more consultation and that proper contractual relationships should have been built up with Capita? With the benefit of the hindsight, do you recognise that perhaps this would have been a useful warning to have given to ministers?
Mr Lewis: With the benefit of hindsight, I think there are certainly things which we should have done differently and they include that we should have deferred the launch date again and allowed more time for a final round of tests. That was not done. There were, inevitably, discussions going on in the run up to the actual launch in March 2002 and amongst the steps that were properly taken then was a final Office of Government Commerce Gateway 4A Review and that review actually found that it would have been, in their judgment, more harmful rather than less to have deferred the launch date again and that was a decision which those who were charged with launching the Service took at the time. With the benefit of hindsight, that was the wrong decision. We should have deferred the launch again and we would then have launched it better and more effectively and not, I believe, run into a number of the problems that we did.
Chairman: Thank you very much.
Q13 Mr Bacon: Mr Lewis, can I start where the Chairman left off. On page 39, Appendix 2, the second bullet down, it says, "With the wisdom of hindsight, the Bureau should have delayed operational launch when the pilot testing proved inconclusive." From what you have just said, you would regard it as a pretty good principle that pilot testing should be reasonably conclusive before you go ahead with something.
Mr Lewis: Yes, I would.
Q14 Mr Bacon: Does that require a lot of hindsight or is it just sheer common sense?
Mr Lewis: I think it is a principle which stands and which is of pretty near general application.
Q15 Mr Bacon: The second part of the sentence says, "However, there was advice and various pressures to go live and this was endorsed by the Office of Government Commerce Gateway 4A Review." Could you say what the advice in that sentence was? The advice to go live, what was that? Where is this advice to go live from?
Mr Lewis: The advice was the advice of all of those who were at that time charged with launching the service.
Q16 Mr Bacon: Who? Are we talking about people in Capita or professionals?
Mr Lewis: I am talking about both. The view at that point, both of the CRB, the Chief Executive of Capita, of our consultants, PA Consulting and of the OGC was that we could, and should, go live.
Q17 Mr Bacon: The various pressures, that just refers to ministers saying get on with it, does it not?
Mr Lewis: Yes. I do not want to give any impression that there was some kind of huge pressure from ministers.
Q18 Mr Bacon: But that is what it is referring to, pressures from ministers.
Mr Lewis: There was a general pressure, of course, because this was an announcement and a commitment that had been made that it should be established as soon as possible, but there was no pressure from ministers to proceed before it was safe to do so.
Q19 Mr Bacon: That is a great relief. Mr Herdan, you are in charge of the Passport Agency, is that right?
Mr Herdan: Yes.
Q20 Mr Bacon: Appendix 2 is a comparison of the Passport Agency Report and the Criminal Records Agency Report and it makes quite interesting reading. The Passport Report says, "The Agency should have been more realistic about the time, resources and management effort needed," and the Criminal Records Bureau one says, "The Agency was optimistic about timescales . . ." As you go through it looks pretty similar. Could you say who the consultants were on the Passport Agency computer project?
Mr Herdan: The Passport Agency was launched as a public private partnership with Siemens and SPSL. After the crisis in summer 1999 the National Audit Office Report was undertaken and then it came to this Committee. I came to this as the incoming Chief Executive coming in after the crisis. We discussed it and your Committee produced a set of lessons. This analysis was produced by the National Audit Office to see whether we had taken them on board. The conclusion I have drawn from this is that each situation is different and whereas we did avoid falling into the traps which the Passport Agency had fallen into in 1999, there were other traps instead-