Written question asked by Nigel Waterson (Conservative) on Tuesday, 9 March 2010, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Thursday, 11 March 2010. It was answered by Angela Eagle (Labour) on Monday, 22 March 2010 on behalf of the Department for Work and Pensions.

National Employment Savings Trust

Question: (2) by what mechanism the Personal Accounts Delivery Authority intends to achieve its strategic aim of re-using existing business services and IT infrastructure for the delivery of services for the National Employment Savings Trust.

Answer: A major area of focus of the scheme administration services procurement process was consideration of the benefits of, and possibilities for, the re-use of established systems and IT infrastructure.At the pre-qualification stage, PADA challenged prospective suppliers on their existing pension administration services, client base and technology assets. Responses on these topics formed part of the consideration which led to four suppliers being short-listed for competitive dialogue.Throughout the competitive dialogue, PADA worked with the qualified bidders to understand how they would deliver the service using pre-existing, 'off-the-shelf software and infrastructures.The winning bidder, Tata Consultancy Services Ltd., demonstrated their ability and commitment to using established systems by building a version of the production system, based on their existing IT infrastructure, which demonstrated the strength of their capability to deliver the service requirements.

Secondary information