Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what the (a) planned and (b) actual savings to his Department were under the Army Recruiting Partnership Project in each financial year between 2012-13 and 2014-15.

The Army is delivering its recruiting operations in partnership with Capita through the Recruiting Partnering Project (RPP). In January 2014 a number of steps were taken by the Ministry of Defence to improve recruiting performance. These were set out by the former Defence Secretary, the right hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Philip Hammond) in his statement on 14 January 2014 (Official Report, column 715). Since that statement, good progress has been made and a number of criteria for the achievement of Full Operating Capability have been met, but the go-live date for the ICT system has been delayed and is now scheduled for no later than April 2016.

The financial benefits of the RPP are measured by comparing the cost of operating the service compared with the original financial baseline used by the project. Actual versus planned savings for the financial years (FY) 2012-13 to 2014-15 are as follows:

Capita has been subject to the full contractual performance regime since the end of July 2015, and is now responsible for all interim costs until the new ICT solution is delivered. Forecast benefits across the life of the project have now reduced to around £220 million. The project costs remain within the original approval.

The revised planned savings to be delivered under RPP between FY 2015-16 and 2021-22 are now as follows:

These figures correct those in the answer given by my hon. Friend the Minister for the Reserves (Julian Brazier) on 16 March 2015 to Question 225513, to the right hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Jeffrey M. Donaldson).