Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, with reference to page 137 of his Department’s annual report and accounts for 2022 to 2023, HC 1872, what the purpose was of the asset under development for the Rural Payments Agency; and for what reasons did it became obsolete before it became operational.

The published text is reproduced below followed by a more detailed explanation.

The Core department has recognised a constructive loss (£2.5 million) relating to a project that was abandoned as no longer required. Defra had been developing the non-current asset for the Rural Payments Agency (RPA), but at some point, this was cancelled while the Assets Under Construction (AUC) was still held in Digital, Data and Technology Services (DDTS) and therefore the AUC became obsolete before it became operational.

The purpose of the asset was an IT system called MS Dax that RPA used for its running costs and HR. The HR functionality included holding staff personal data, booking annual leave for employees and extracting data for the annual leave accrual.

The amount related to enhancement work done for the upgrade to this IT platform, the Microsoft Dynamics Running Costs Solution Release 3 from Release 2.

The reason for the obsolescence was the asset was decommissioned in January 2023 as the RPA took a strategic decision to move the management of RPA’s running costs and HR to the same IT system as other larger Defra bodies.