Unified administration in 2005 provides an opportunity to re-engineer business processes with new IT (Part 3 of the Report)
12 The Government intends to integrate the management of the criminal courts within a single courts organisation to replace existing Magistrates' Courts Committees and the Court Service. The target date for unified administration is April 2005. The Department considers that Libra is essential to the implementation of unified administration. The introduction of unified administration will not initially involve significant changes to magistrates' court processes. But the Department recognises as a long-term aim the standardisation and improvement of business processes across magistrates' courts.
13 The Department needs to plan ahead now for the IT systems to replace Libra and other court systems where the contracts are due to end in 2007. New IT systems need to be developed in parallel with changes in magistrates' court processes once unified administration is in place.
2 |
| Chronology of the Libra project | |
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| Date | Event |
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| Oct 1996 | The Department started to procure a PFI contract. |
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| Nov 1996 | The Department received 19 expressions of interest in response to a notice in the Official Journal of the European Communities. |
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| Sep 1997 | Two bidders (ICL and EDS) submitted detailed proposals. |
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| May 1998 | EDS declined to submit a response to the Invitation to Tender. |
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| May 1998 | ICL submitted the only bid for £146 million. |
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| Jul 1998 | ICL was chosen as the preferred bidder. |
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| Oct 1998 | ICL increased its bid from £146 million to £184 million. |
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| Dec 1998 | The Department awarded the contract to ICL after assessing ICL's offer as affordable and value for money. The contract was for £184 million over 10.5 years. |
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| Oct 1999 | ICL sought a renegotiation of the contract as its cash flow forecasts showed a £39 million deficit over the life of the deal. |
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| May 2000 | The Department and ICL signed a revised contract for £319 million over 14.5 years. The increased cost was mainly for an extra four years of service and for earlier roll-out of the infrastructure. |
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| Nov 2000 | ICL informed the Department that it would only be able to deliver criminal cases software to the first site in Suffolk by the target date of July 2001, with software for family and licensing cases to be delivered 10 weeks later. |
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| Feb-June 2001 | ICL brought in a new management team who re-evaluated the plan and assessed that it was not deliverable. |
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| Jun 2001 | ICL told the Department that its forecast losses were now so high that it could not continue with the contract unless it was substantially renegotiated. |
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| Jul 2001 | ICL was in breach of the contract for failing to meet the delivery date for core software at the first site. The Department decided to negotiate with ICL rather than terminate the contract and sue for damages. The Department started to consider other options for continuing with Libra. |
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| Sep 2001 | ICL told the Department that its maximum potential loss on the project was £200 million and that it would repudiate the contract unless the Department negotiated to cover the loss. |
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| Oct 2001 | The Department and ICL signed a legally binding Memorandum of Understanding, which placed the Department in a less favourable position than simply continuing with the existing contractual arrangements and relying on its contractual rights. |
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| Feb 2002 | On grounds of value for money and affordability the Department could not reach agreement with ICL for ICL to continue with the whole contract. |
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| Jul 2002 | The Department signed a revised contract with ICL (now known as Fujitsu Services) for £232 million over 8.5 years to supply only the infrastructure element of Libra. The Department intends to sign separate contracts with STL for the core software application and for a systems integrator to roll out the programme. |
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| Source: Lord Chancellor's Department | |
3 |
| The rising cost of the Libra project | ||||
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| May 1998 ICL's original bid | Dec 1998 original contract | May 2000 revised contract | July 2002 current proposal | |
| Contract costs |
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| Infrastructure (£m) | not known | not known | not known | 232 | |
| Application (£m) | not known | not known | not known | 86 | |
| Total contract costs (£m) | 146 | 184 | 319 | 318 | |
| Internal project costs (£m) | 10 | 10 | 18 | 12 | |
| Additional enhancements and other costs | 0 | 0 | 0 | 60 | |
| Total project costs (£m) | 156 | 194 | 337 | 390 | |
| Contract length (years) | 11 | 10.5 | 14.5 | 8.5 | |
| Source: Lord Chancellor's Department | |||||
