Billy Timmins (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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Question 87: To ask the Minister for Social and Family Affairs the progress to date in 2005 in the development of its new information technology systems; the estimated and actual cost of each system to date in 2005; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [30878/05]

Séamus Brennan (Dublin South, Fianna Fail)
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My Department is highly dependent on computer systems to deliver its schemes and in particular, its payment services. For example, each week my Department is responsible for some 970,000 payments that, when dependants are included, directly benefit some 1.5 million men, women and children. Each year almost 60 million transactions are processed and issued by my Department. The majority of payments are made through the older systems, the technology on which they are based has been in place for over 20 years and needs to be updated.

My Department has developed a strategic programme of continuous development of its information and computer technology, ICT, systems and the related underlying infrastructure to satisfy strategy, policy and legislative requirements of the Department. At any time, there are a number of major new projects under way as well as significant maintenance and enhancement of older systems.

The major systems currently being developed include systems that implement direct customer facing services, e-Government related systems and systems primarily aimed at administrative needs.

The customer facing systems that are being developed are in line with the Department's service delivery modernisation, SDM, programme, approved by Government in July 2000. The SDM which will ultimately impact on all of the Department's schemes and services is being implemented in a number of self-contained projects spanning several years.

Each project generally has two strands, one focused on developing the ICT system components and the other on implementing a parallel programme of organisational change. The aim is to implement modern work practices, supported on a flexible technical architecture, which will allow my Department to respond more rapidly to change and to deliver a high quality, personalised and integrated service to its customers. Each project is the subject of one or more separate fixed-price consultancy contracts negotiated following a public procurement exercise.

The first of these projects established the general design principles for subsequent phases and involved the redesign of the child benefit scheme. This system was successfully implemented in November 2002 and gained a number of international awards for its improvements in service delivery. A second major project is under way to extend the programme to retirement pension, old age contributory pension, household benefits and bereavement grants. The project is being developed on an incremental basis; the first phase, the contribution history object, is going live at present. Subsequent phases of this project are planned for end-March of 2006 and mid next year. Consultancy payments to the firms involved are €3,408,550, to end August, for contracts valued at €8,230,205.

A related exercise is being carried out to establish requirements and to model the next generation of customer systems. Successful conclusion of this exercise will provide the scoping information for a project commencing in 2006 to develop these systems. No expenditure has been incurred on this exercise in 2005 so far.

The main e-Government-related system is the public service broker, PSB, essentially a set of infrastructure and shared services, which is being developed for the Reach agency. This agency does not have its own development staff and the PSB is being developed by external consultants. Reach has provided an inter-agency messaging system that facilitates, for example, the connection of the General Register Office to my Department for the notification of births and the automatic initiation of child benefit claims. This service was extended to deaths and marriages. Some 32 agencies currently receive these services. The system has been developed into a production level broker facility that provides personal account, case management and secure identity services. An external supplier began work on the development and deployment of the basic public services.

Regarding broker systems in January 2004 with an estimated cost of €5.31 million, to date, €3.77 million has been paid with the remainder to fall due when phase 1 of the system is completed early in 2006. Additional services and capacity are being developed and added to the core system. To date, some €4.5 million has been spent or committed on these additional services and capacity.

Reach's secure identity services invoke public service identity, PSI, services that my Department has built in conjunction with Reach to service internal and external requirements for management of the personal public service, PPS, number. This project commenced in June 2004 and it is expected to conclude in the first quarter of 2006.

The estimated development cost of this project was €1.7 million. Payments to date amount to €1.17 million and it is estimated that, due to changes in the scope of the project, the final amount will exceed the original estimate but will remain within currently permitted fixed-price threshold amounts.

My Department is also engaged in the development of a number of computerised administrative systems. One such system is the payment and agency reconciliation project which has the objective of fully reconciling the Department's payments and external agency accounts. Phase 1 of the project, a comprehensive analysis of the business, user and ICT requirements, was completed in the second quarter of 2005. A scoping phase to determine the requirements to be included in a request for tenders for procurement of the new system is under way at present. It is hoped to invite tenders for the building of the new system in 2006. The expected date for project completion is end 2007. The estimated consultancy requirement for 2005 was €55,000, just under €30,000 has been spent in the year to date and no further consultancy expenditure is anticipated this year.

My Department is engaged in the development of the overpayment and debt management, ODM, system. This will provide a central facility to record overpayments that arise in the operation of the Department's schemes and to manage the recovery of the debt arising from any such overpayments. The system will be integrated with a range of scheme systems operated by my Department and will be built using the same approach adopted for the SDM programme to provide a flexible architecture and to enhance the system for users. Modelling of the business requirements is nearing completion and it is planned to commence building the system in 2006. The estimated total cost of this project is €1 million, of which approximately €11,000 has been spent to date in 2005.

A third administrative project is to develop a document, records and information management, DRIM, strategy for subsequent implementation as a set of separate projects. The nature, scope and justification of these further projects will depend on the outcome of the strategy project. The consultancy cost to date is €9,000.

One of the key elements of my Department's modernisation plans is the development of a management information framework, MIF, to facilitate effective resource allocation, planning, programme evaluation and decision making through the provision of financial and non-financial management information. The focus of MIF during 2005 has been on the development of a statistical database that delivers management reports. The production of these reports is being piloted in one of my Department's regions and the roll-out of this system to the remaining regions will commence shortly. Consultancy expenditure on the project for 2005 was estimated to be €50,000 but as the work was carried out using internal resources, no consultancy costs were incurred.