EDS latest cockup

A computer hard drive with the private details of armed forces personnel is missing, the Ministry of Defence has confirmed.

The portable drive contains the names, addresses, passport numbers, dates of birth and driving licence details of around 100,000 serving personnel across the Army, Royal Navy and RAF, along with details of their next of kin.

It also contains data on 600,000 potential services applicants and the names of their referees.

The drive could not be accounted for during an audit conducted by MoD contractor EDS as part of the ongoing Cabinet Office review of data security being conducted by Sir Edmund Burton.

Officials said they were "not ruling out" the risk that bank account details of personnel were held on the drive, which belonged to its IT contractor EDS.

..EDS are a key partner in the Metrix consortium to deliver training in the biggest PFI ever at St Athan.

EDS MOD project costs treble!

New Labour's unlucky 13 IT projects here

Now the Labour Party's conference, which was held in Manchester, is finished, I've looked at the lessons and what went wrong on 13 large, government IT-based projects and programmes:

• Magistrates' courts
• Schools
• Intelligence Services
• GCHQ
• Passport Service
• National Health Service
• Rural Payments Agency
• Criminal Records Bureau
• HM Revenue and Customs
• Department for Work and Pensions
• Department of Health
• Department for Innovation Universities Skills
• Ministry of Defence

The analysis is tied in with an analysis and comment, to be published in Computer Weekly this week, on Labour's track record on managing big IT-based projects and programmes.

Ministry of Defence (EDS are one the METRIX consortium - why would you hire these people?)

The expected costs of the Defence Information Infrastructure (DII) are £7bn - when Parliament was told the costs would be £2.3bn. The National Audit Office in July 2008 found there had been "major delays to the roll out of the first stage of the DII programme. The Department contracted to have 62,800 DII terminals in place at permanent defence sites by the end of July 2007. At the end of April 2008, only 29,000 had been delivered

"Currently the end date for installation of increment one is running 18 months late against the estimated latest completion date at contract signature".

The cost of the project was announced originally at about £2.3bn, but the latest cost estimate is £7bn, though not because of any fault of the main contractor EDS. The National Audit Office found the costs of the DII contracts with the Atlas consortium, led by EDS, are under firm control. The MoD paid EDS less than the supplier had originally expected because of an 18-month delay in the roll-out. The difference in costs is because the MoD was not open and candid when announcing the costs originally. The DII programme "assumed that the roll-out of infrastructure and terminals would be more straightforward than transpired," said the National Audit Office.

Allied article: Why can't new Labour get IT right?