Pathway contend that one reason why the development of their Payment Card system encountered difficulties is that the Department's CAPS system was not designed in time to provide stable interfaces with the Payment Card. They contend that they had been led to believe that CAPS would be available in its entirety by September 1996. There is no dispute that the complete version of CAPS was not available by then. The relevant clause in the contract was as follows.
"The dates in the contractual milestones table are conditional on CAPS releases and functionality being available to the contractor as set out in the table below this paragraph, and shall be delayed by an amount equal to any delay of such availability:" | |
Available for technical testing | 1 June 1996 |
Available for full integration testing | 1 September 1996 |
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The Department contend that this interpretation is unrealistic in terms of the way the development programme actually operated, and is based on the contract when it was signed in May 1996, and not as it was modified in the light of the "no-fault" agreed replan in February 1997. They also contend that Pathway did not have a complete system to test by September 1996 in any case, and that CAPS releases did not slip behind equivalent releases of Payment Card software by Pathway after February 1997.