Compliance Toolkit

Northern Ireland gets IT upgrade

Kable

Published: 10 Aug 2004 14:20 BST

Northern Ireland has begun a major IT project to streamline communications between its government departments, according to reports on 9 August, 2004.

The initiative is part of the Northern Ireland Executive's wider efforts to make services more accessible online. The infrastructure is to be delivered by a consortium which includes Hewlett Packard, Microsoft and local IT supplier BIC Systems.

Barry Lowry, head of ICT services in Northern Ireland's Business Development Service (BDS), was reported in The Belfast Telegraph as saying: "An important part of our strategic plan over the next three years is to support the roll out of e-government services in Northern Ireland. Upgrading our existing IT infrastructure with the help of our technology partners is a hugely significant step in this plan, which will result in improvement in the delivery of e-government services to the people of Northern Ireland."

In the first stage of the project, the BDS will upgrade its own infrastructure. The next stages involve work on the design and implementation of IT systems for each of Northern Ireland's 11 government departments.