Asked by: Jon Trickett (Labour - Hemsworth)
Question to the Attorney General:
To ask the Attorney General, what apps his Department has approved for use on mobile phones issued by his Department.
Answered by Robert Buckland
Due to national security concerns it would be inappropriate to publicly supply a list of applications approved for use on mobile phones issued by the Attorney General’s Office, as to do so facilitates attacks against official systems by hostile actors.
Asked by: Jon Trickett (Labour - Hemsworth)
Question to the Attorney General:
To ask the Attorney General, pursuant to the Answer of 23 March 2018 to Question 123531, on Attorney General: Procurement, if he will list (a) the suppliers of and (b) the purpose of the (i) the Government Legal Department's contracts with the eight strategic suppliers (ii) the CPS's six contracts with strategic suppliers, (iii) the Serious Fraud Office's three contracts with strategic suppliers and (iv) Her Majesty's Crown Prosecution Service Inspectorate's contracts with which two strategic suppliers.
Answered by Robert Buckland
Pursuant to the Answer of 23 March 2018 to Question 123531, the table below summarises the purpose of the six contracts between the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) and government strategic suppliers.
Supplier | Purpose of contract |
Capita | Supply of interim and temporary staff let via a pan government framework. |
CGI | (1) ICT Applications, Hosting and Management let via a pan government framework. (2) Managed payroll services let via a pan government framework. (3) Oracle finance system managed service let via a pan government framework. (4) Fully managed ICT services including; applications, hosting and management, system integration and management, service desk and end user computing. |
Vodafone | National contract let via the Cabinet Office G-Cloud framework for managed video conferencing services. |
In addition, the CPS has no major contracts but multiple agreements with the following government strategic suppliers:
BT –for land line phones, alarm systems and business broadband lines.
Microsoft - for MS office products, server and networking applications and other software products.
Oracle - for server and networking applications and other software products.
The table below summarises the purpose of the contracts between the Government Legal Department (GLD) and Her Majesty’s Crown Prosecution Service Inspectorate (HMCPSI) and government strategic suppliers. It is the policy to engage with suppliers using central government frameworks and call off arrangements.
Supplier | GLD – purpose of contract | HMCPSI - purpose of contract |
BT plc | Provision of phone services for business continuity (disaster recovery). | Provision of mobile connectivity services and video conferencing at the York office |
Cap Gemini | Provision of a supplier invoice receipt and scanning service; provision of a cloud-based invoice approval and electronic document management system; and secure destruction of paper documents. |
|
Capita | Predominately temporary staff, mainly lawyers, and training courses. |
|
Fujitsu | Provision of e-disclosure services to support legal cases. |
|
Microsoft | Software licences and support for Microsoft products, for example, Windows and Office Suites. |
|
Mitie | Office cleaning services. |
|
Oracle | Software licences and support. |
|
Vodafone | Provision of mobile phone and connectivity services. | Provision of mobile phone and connectivity services. |
The table below summarises the purpose of the contracts between the Attorney General’s Office (AGO) and government strategic suppliers.
Supplier | Purpose of contract |
Amey | Facilities management |
BT | Network lines |
Capita | IT services |
The table below summarises the purpose of the contracts between the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) and government strategic suppliers.
Supplier | Purpose of contract |
BT PLC | Broadband lines at Southwark Crown Court |
Capita | IT support contract |
Vodafone | network services contract |
Asked by: Jon Trickett (Labour - Hemsworth)
Question to the Attorney General:
To ask the Attorney General, what proportion of his Department's estate is (a) rented, (b) owned and (c) occupied through any other type of agreement.
Answered by Robert Buckland
The Government Legal Department (GLD) does not own any estate but rents all of its office space. GLD teams co-located with their client teams occupy client building space as part of an overall fee agreement for the provision of legal services to clients.
The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) estate is comprised of 42 buildings with the types of occupation shown in the table below. The HMCPSI estate is included as part of this.
Type of Occupation | Number of Buildings | Square Meters |
Freehold/Owned | 2 | 4,426 (7%) |
Commercial Lease | 27 | 52,991 (78%) |
Licence to occupy | 13 | 10,404 (15%) |
The Serious Fraud Office’s (SFO’s) estates have always been rented either by a lease agreement, or a Civil Estate Occupancy Agreement (MOTO). The SFO’s current estate is leased. The Attorney General’s Office (AGO) estate is also leased.
Asked by: Jon Trickett (Labour - Hemsworth)
Question to the Attorney General:
To ask the Attorney General, how many IT systems which his Department uses are more than (a) three, (b) five and (c) eight years old; and what steps he is taking to ensure that all his Department's IT systems are updated promptly.
Answered by Robert Buckland
The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) is responsible for the IT systems of CPS, Attorney General’s Office (AGO) and Her Majesty’s CPS Inspectorate (HMCPSI).
Of their eight core corporate IT systems, six were launched more than eight years ago – however, the component parts thereof are replaced and upgraded regularly. Both the hardware and the software have been updated and refreshed throughout their lifetime to make them fit for continued use into the future. One of the other systems is approximately 5 years old, and the same applies; the remaining system is new.
Where these systems are supplied by external providers, a requirement for prompt updating is part of the supplier contract. Where they are managed in-house, this is part of the internal service agreement with the relevant team. Our internal Service Management team monitors adherence to these commitments in all cases.
The Government Legal Department (GLD) uses a number IT systems, most of which are regularly updated by applying the suppliers recommended patches and version updates, after appropriate testing.
Specifically:
(a) GLD has one system (Solcase) over three years old. It was last updated in 2014 and the next upgrade is due in May 2018.
(b) GLD has two systems (RKYV and Windows 7) that are over 8 years old. The RKYV document management system, used by only a few individuals, is currently being decommissioned. This system was last updated in 2008. The desktop operating system is Windows 7, which was released in 2009. Configuration of a new Windows 10 build is in progress, and GLD is aiming to roll this out in the next month.
The answers to the specific questions in relation to the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) are a) 8; b) 2 and c) 3. This information relates only to IT Business System Applications, which enable work to be processed, and not supporting infrastructure and operating systems.
The calculated age of the SFO’s IT systems is based on the last upgrade or install date. Projects are already underway to replace or decommission a number of the systems that currently fall into the 8, 5 and 3 year old categories.
Asked by: Jon Trickett (Labour - Hemsworth)
Question to the Attorney General:
To ask the Attorney General, pursuant to the Answer of 1 February 2018 to Question 123531 on Attorney General: procurement, if he will list those contracts including the supplier name and value of those contracts.
Answered by Robert Buckland
The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) has the following contracts with the government’s strategic suppliers:
Supplier | Contract | Estimated Value* £ |
BT Plc | Multiple landline phones, alarms and broadband service agreements | 143,500 |
Capita | Contingent Labour ONE Call-Off | 136,900 |
CGI | Payroll Call-Off | 1,300,500 |
| Finance and Resource Management System Call-Off | 200,000 |
| Managed ICT Services contract; and | 300,000,000 |
| Applications Support and Data Hosting Call-Off | 19,000,000 |
Microsoft | Multiple licencing agreements. | 172,000 |
Oracle | Multiple licencing agreements | 470,000 |
Vodafone | Videoconferencing service Call-Off | 700,000 |
* The Estimated Value is given as the value for the contract Term where the department has signed a Call-Off Contract and the annual spend to 31 January 2018 where the department has renewable licensing arrangements.
For the Serious Fraud Office (SFO), the contracts are:
Supplier | 2016/17 |
BT plc | £15,897 |
Capita | £704,697 |
Vodafone | £75,905 |
To identify overall contract values for the Government Legal Department (GLD), Attorney General Office (AGO) and HM Crown Prosecution Service Inspectorate (HMCPSI) would require the identification and examination of all awards made to the Strategic Suppliers (as defined by the Crown Commercial Services) and this cannot be achieved without incurring disproportionate cost. However, our payments to Strategic Suppliers, for 2016-17 is set out below:
Strategic Supplier | Expenditure 2016-17 GLD | Expenditure 2016-17 AGO | Expenditure 2016-17 HMCPSI |
Amey |
| £335,965 |
|
BT Plc | £1,699 | £2,159 | £1,308 |
Capgemini | £88,914 |
|
|
Capita | £6,369,832 | £847* |
|
Fujitsu | £561,131 |
|
|
Microsoft | £62,178 |
|
|
Mitie | £186,854 |
|
|
Oracle | £34,126 |
|
|
Vodafone | £226,794 | £43,763 | £8,779 |
* The payment for this amount piggy backed on the contract that SFO had with Capita.
Asked by: Jon Trickett (Labour - Hemsworth)
Question to the Attorney General:
To ask the Attorney General, which members of his Department's board are responsible for ensuring the proper application of the business appointment rules for former Ministers and senior civil servants.
Answered by Robert Buckland
Applications by former Ministers are considered by the independent Advisory Committee on Business Appointments directly.
For applications from former Civil Servants: Departmental Audit and Risk Committees, which are chaired by Departmental Non Executive Directors, will monitor compliance issues relating to the Business Appointment Rules.
Asked by: Jon Trickett (Labour - Hemsworth)
Question to the Attorney General:
To ask the Attorney General, how many contracts his Department holds with government strategic suppliers.
Answered by Robert Buckland
The Government Legal Department (GLD) holds contracts with eight Government strategic suppliers and Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) hold six contracts with Government strategic suppliers.
The Serious Fraud Office (SFO) holds three contracts with Government strategic suppliers.
HMCPSI holds two contracts with Government strategic suppliers; and the Attorney General’s Office (AGO) holds contracts with three suppliers.
Asked by: Jon Trickett (Labour - Hemsworth)
Question to the Attorney General:
To ask the Attorney General, how many ministerial directions were issued to his Department in (a) 2015, (b) 2016 and (c) 2017.
Answered by Jeremy Wright
No ministerial directions were issued to my department in the years 2015, 2016 or 2017.
Asked by: Jon Trickett (Labour - Hemsworth)
Question to the Attorney General:
To ask the Attorney General, what steps his offices are taking to implement the guidance set out by the Government Commercial Function in its paper entitled Exiting Major IT Contracts: Guidance for Departments, published in November 2017, in respect of (a) using market engagement, (b) setting up disaggregation work, (c) risk assessment, (d) developing a programme plan through the transition, (e) identifying the skills and capabilities that will be needed in the future and (f) any other work related to that guidance.
Answered by Jeremy Wright
The CPS is fully aligned with the Government Commercial Function paper "Exiting Major IT Contracts: Guidance for Departments”.
The programme to disaggregate and replace ICT services delivered through a PFI contract with CGI (formally Logica) since 2002 is well advanced and will complete in 2019. Throughout the programme the CPS has worked in partnership with the Government Digital Service and the Crown Commercial Service, securing spending control approval from Cabinet Office and HM Treasury where appropriate. The CPS’s strategy ensures that it is aligned with the government’s Technology Code of Practice including the principle of cloud-first services.
In 2015 the CPS carried out a major review of its internal capability across all aspects of ICT including technical, service management, commercial and programme management. As a result a new separate ICT Commercial Team was established and a number of new roles were established and filled in its Digital Technology Services Directorate.
The CPS operates detailed programme plans and associated risk logs to manage each phase of the disaggregation including pre-market engagement, procurement, service transition and service exit.
The CPS has used pan-government frameworks, let and managed by the Crown Commercial Service to replace network, telephony, print and applications hosting and management services. It is planning to use these frameworks to replace service desk and end user computing services in 2018. As part of each procurement process, it undertakes market engagement, the extent of which is dependent on the size and complexity of the contract to be awarded.
The CPS provides ICT services to the Attorney General’s Office (AGO) and HMCPSI.
The Serious Fraud Office (SFO) does not have any large outsourced single vendor IT contract in place.
It uses a multi-vendor approach, selecting suppliers based on their ability to support their specialised systems, and that is combined with in-house teams, which have grown in size in recent years as they reduce their reliance on external providers.
The SFO regularly reviews all its IT contracts taking into account the potential for disaggregation, benefits, costs, timing, risks, and overall value for money, in line with the guidance provided by the Government Commercial Function.
The largest contract currently in place is with Capita, and that contract is due to expire in July 2019. Ahead of that, a full review will take place, to determine whether it continues to outsource this service to Capita or another provider, or bring the service in house.
The Government Legal Department (GLD) does not hold any large single provider contracts worth over £20 million per year which fall within the guidance published in November 2017. GLD uses its own in-house IT services as well as using a multi provider approach when delivering any IT services. It is committed to following the principles contained within the guidance where applicable.
Asked by: Jon Trickett (Labour - Hemsworth)
Question to the Attorney General:
To ask the Attorney General, how many data incidents his Department (a) recorded and (b) reported to the Information Commissioner's Office in (i) 2015-16 and (ii) 2016-17.
Answered by Jeremy Wright
Neither the AGO or HMCPSI recorded any data incidents in 2015-16 or 2016-17.
The CPS recorded 183 data incidents in 2015-16 and 242 in 2016-17. Three of the incidents in 2015-16 were referred to the ICO and seven of the incidents in 2016-17.
The SFO recorded nine data incidents in 2015-16 and 17 in 2016-17. None of these were deemed serious enough to require reporting to the ICO.
The GLD recorded 63 security incidents in 2015-16 and 45 in 2016-17. None of the incidents in 2015-16 was deemed serious enough to require reporting to the ICO; one was reported to the ICO in 2016-17. The GLD does not specifically record ‘data incidents’ as a reporting category; the figures for ‘security incidents’ include physical and personal security, as well as information security.