CAFCASS implementation of Public Sector Flex

Dear Children and Family Court Advisory Support Service,

I understand from the Fujitsu web site that CAFCASS joined the
Public Sector Flex service in March 2008 for your IT services.
According to Fujitsu, service commencement was due in October 2008.

Under the Freedom of Information Act please can you provide me with
copies of:

1. Any reports or business case prepared by or for CAFCASS upon
which the decision to join the Public Sector Flex service was
based.

2. Copies of any internal reports prepared by or for CAFCASS
subsequent to signing the contract concerning progress made on
implementing the Public Sector Flex service.

3. Confirmation of when the full Public Sector Flex shared service
was delivered to CAFCASS (eg a copy of the acceptance certificate
for the new service). (This refers to the full shared service
rather than merely taking over any existing service from previous
suppliers.)

4. Copies of any internal reports, memos or meeting notes made
subsequent to meetings of the Flex Framework Board.

5. Copies of any correspondence with Fujitsu and/or the Cabinet
Office concerning the implementation of the Public Sector Flex
service.

Yours faithfully,

Janine Baker

Dear Miss Jassal

I am somewhat confused by your response that you will be
acknowledging my request shortly. Your email to me clearly
indicates that you have received it, and the maximum timescale for
responding is not based on when you acknowledge it but rather than
20th working day following the date of receipt, ie 14 May 2010.

I am also unclear about why you need my postal address. I would
prefer to deal with this request by email, and therefore will not
be providing any alternative address.

I should point out that under section 8.1.b of the Freedom of
Information Act, the requirement is to provide an "address for
correspondence"; the email address I am using is sufficient for
this purpose.

The Ministry of Justice guidance on this matter states "As well as
hard copy written correspondence, requests that are transmitted
electronically (for example, in emails) are acceptable ... If a
request is received by email and no postal address is given, the
email address should be treated as the return address."

I look forward to receiving a response to my request as soon as
possible and in any event by 14 May 2010 in line with the Act.

Yours sincerely,

Janine Baker

Dear Miss Jassal,

Thank you for your response. Whilst I am disappointed that you will
not be able to provide all of the information requested, the
information you have released has indicated some worrying signs
which I should be grateful if you could address.

From the business case document, the service was due to be fully
transformed by 31 August 2008 (although Fujitsu's press release
says October 2008). However, in your answer to Q3, you indicated
that the fully transformed service was not available until 14
December 2009, and so on the face of it was 15 months late (or 13
months from Fujitsu's date).

I understand from the Flex Customer Contract that if Fujitsu is
going to miss a milestone, they have to propose to you the steps
they will take to minimise any such delay. Did this happen, and can
you release any communications from them?

Also from a value for money perspective, I understand that the
Charges schedule of the Flex Customer Contract includes provision
for weekly delay payments if milestones are missed. As the
transformed service appears to have been over a year late, please
can you advise whether delay payments were made by Fujitsu? Were
the delay payments waived in whole or in part and, if so, is there
any documentation on why this was done?

Yours sincerely,

Janine Baker

Dear Miss Jassal,

I do not appear to have had an acknowledgement to my email of 13
May.

Please can you confirm receipt and advise how you are proposing to
respond to this, eg as a follow up to my previous request or as a
new FOI request.

Many thanks,

Janine Baker