6 We collected information from the following main sources:
■ the documentation issued to bidders during the project procurement phase;
■ the detailed proposals of the three shortlisted bidders before the award of contract;
■ interviews with members of the joint DSS and Benefits Agency/Post Office procurement team, including officials and advisers, on how they handled the specification of the service and the negotiation of the deal;
■ the legal agreements and schedules underpinning the purchasers' contract with Pathway;
■ the project management documentation of the Joint Benefits Agency/ Post Office Counters Ltd' Delivery Authority during the implementation phase;
■ risk management documentation, particularly risk registers and reports, raised during both the procurement and implementation stages of the project.
■ scrutiny of the reports of successive external reviews of the project and interviews with authors of these reports where we required clarification;
■ a visit to a post office operating the Card payment system prior to its cancellation; and
■ interviews with each of the three short-listed bidders, including Pathway, who also made available to us selected project documentation, demonstrated to us the operation of the system, and shared with us lessons they have learned.
7 We also searched the internet, using search engines, for international evidence on Information Technology project outcomes.