4.6 One of the Department's reasons for outsourcing its information technology operations was to reduce the costs of the service, which were estimated to be up to 30 per cent higher than comparative organisations. The partnership with EDS was designed to deliver cost reductions on a phased basis over the life of the contract. In July 1997, three years into the contract, the Department's Contract Management Team decided to commission some benchmarking work and identified a number of areas where external comparisons could, in theory, be made.