Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many IT systems which her Department uses are more than (a) three, (b) five and (c) eight years old; and what steps she is taking to ensure that all her Department's IT systems are updated promptly.

The nature of technology systems and services is that they are continually being evolved and updated, reflecting technology advances and to address risk of obsolescence. This means services are made up of elements introduced over differing time periods.

The Home Office uses a range of techniques, health checks and controls to continually review, maintain, patch and refresh components of its technology services in order to promote resilience and security. Where appropriate services are decommissioned and replaced. The Home Office has a ‘digital by default’ technology strategy and is taking advantage of increasing use of new digital and cloud based technologies in the development of its new services.