2.30 In October 2000, ICL informed the Department that it would not be able to deliver all the software to the first site in Suffolk by the target date of July 2001. A joint review of ICL's plans recommended that criminal cases software should be delivered in July 2001, followed by the remainder ten weeks later.
2.31 In February 2001, ICL terminated the contracts of some of the senior managers involved in the project and appointed a new senior management team. The new team insisted on changing the direction of the project by agreeing a new method for documenting the Libra requirements definition. The new approach required a definitive document against which the product could be developed and formally tested and would address a number of integration problems. The new ICL team quickly recognised that based on its new approach it would be unable to achieve the July 2001 target date for the first site in Suffolk. In June 2001 ICL indicated that it would not be able to implement the core software at Suffolk until May 2003. As part of a wider Gateway Review into IT projects in the Criminal Justice System, a Gateway Review8 of Libra took place in June 2001 (Appendix 3). The review was conducted as if it were Stage 4 of the review process which is normally carried out to determine whether the system is fit for deployment. Clearly Libra was not at that time in a state to be judged as fit for deployment and not surprisingly did not pass the review using the criteria appropriate to that stage. The review did find the project to be in serious trouble.
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8 A Gateway Review is a review of a project carried out at a key decision point by a team of experienced people independent of the project team.