In March 2000, the contract for a complete overhaul of the Prison Service's IT function was signed with leading IT systems company, EDS. Launched on 3 July 2000, the 'Quantum Project' will be the catalyst for significant IT-based business change, providing an infrastructure which will support 130 prisons throughout England and Wales and is one the largest Government Private Finance Initiative IT projects to date.
the need
During the contract tendering process, the Prison Service's central London headquarters (where approximately 1,300 people are employed) was a busy project environment, with managers frequently having to battle against competing deadlines in order to complete a complex round of negotiations and evaluation.
According to Claire Willerton, "Since becoming an agency of The Home Office, the Prison Service has taken on the responsibility for its own training function. Most Prison Service training is operations-based, but with Quantum on the horizon we identified an urgent need for non-operational management training, especially for our newly promoted executive officers.
HRS provided a 3-day Management Development Programme which began in January 2000. Claire commented, "The programme helped our people gain a more strategic perspective, giving them the confidence to prioritise tasks and manage their teams more effectively during what has been an extremely demanding phase in the development of our organisation."
