The Identity and Passport Service has awarded Thales an £18m, four-year contract to deliver an interim version of the National Identity Scheme.
Thales has won the first, and probably the smallest, of the five deals to be awarded under the 'framework contract', and will create an early version of the National Identity Scheme, covering groups including airport staff and students from the second half of 2009.
In May, Identity and Passport Service (IPS) executive director Bill Crothers said the contract to establish the interim scheme would be worth "in the order of £10m". A deal with the UK Border Agency for a case-management system will follow by the end of 2008, but the major contracts — creating the main scheme and worth around £500m each — are not scheduled to be awarded until next year, with ID-card production coming last.
The five vendors within the scheme's framework — Thales, CSC, EDS, Fujitsu and IBM — are obliged to bid for each of the contracts.
Thales will work with IPS to "design, build, test and operate the technology" for the scheme. However, 3M SPSL, which currently produces UK passports, will manufacture the early ID cards.
Talkback
To me this is another example of the Civil Service establishment with but vague ministerial approval introducing a grossly expensive scheme without proper approval in Parliament.
While ministers and their immediate Civil Service subordinates should be permitted to expend public funds on day to day running of the country, introducing such as this is more than routine expenditure and should be submitted to Parliament for approval BEFORE expenditure.
To the Civil Service, expenditure means jobs for civil servants regardless of the state of the country's economy and ability to fund such follies, especially when the opposition who will almost certainly rule in the not too distant future plan to scrap ID cards.
It is time for Parliament to regain it's eroded power and impose it's will on the Government, both political and civil service.