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By Tony Hallett, 17 September 2003 16:58

NEWS Fujitsu Services has won around 80 per cent of the £35m, 10-year Causeway Programme aimed at improving operations at criminal justice organisations in Northern Ireland. Fujitsu is prime contractor in a grouping that includes HP, Microsoft and Meridio and won the contract from an initial 27 bids and then a short list of three. The whole project is Microsoft-based - with Microsoft SQL Server being used for structured data such as names and addresses and Meridio technology for unstructured data such as photos and witness statements. The managed service component is totally handled by Fujitsu who will also handle 80 to 90 per cent of the development work. Brett Hannam, head of IT at the Northern Ireland Office, said Fujitsu Services, even in its previous ICL guise, hadn't been an existing supplier. "This was an entirely discrete competition and we funded three proofs of concept," he said. The teams from each bidder were co-located and Hannan said his team "got to know them very well". He confirmed other, non-Microsoft technologies were considered. He declined to confirm the names of the other bidders, though their solutions are thought to have been based on Oracle and Java technology. Fujitsu Services and Meridio are known for their close work with Microsoft software. Alan Thompson, Fujitsu Services account manager for the Causeway Programme, said the project is at the very least a match for those joining up criminal justice organisations in Britain. He said: "But you have to remember we benefit from being smaller. For example, we have one police force as opposed to two dozen or so." The implementation will start before the end of March next year and all six agencies will be up and running by 2006. The agencies affected are: The Police Service of Northern Ireland, Forensic Science Northern Ireland, The Department of the Director of Public Prosecutions for Northern Ireland, The Northern Ireland Court Service, The Probation Board for Northern Ireland and The Northern Ireland Prison Service.