Why the cost of your passport has trebled - FCO buys new computers

Hanslope Park, Bucks. FCO spook Palace expands in £320 MN facelift


Buckinghamshire is awash with spooky sites as a visit to Alan Turnbull's "Secret Bases" will reveal. He has for the New Year a spanking new aerial picture of Hanslope Park which he says houses the Her Majesty's Government Communications Centre (HMGCC) This absorbs 80% of the Hanslope Park estate and also is home to MI6's Technical Security Department (TSD), staffed by SIS operatives who process and analyse data sent from GCHQ in Cheltenham and Menwith Hill in North Yorkshire, especially data intercepted from the foreign embassies in London.

Noteworthy is the 3 story building (left of centre) over 6500 square metres of floor space – under construction , on a former car park, valued at £30Mn. Which is, Turnbull says the Foreign and Commonwealth Office's (FCO) new Information and Communications Technology Centre, due for use at the end of 2007.

In 2005, the FCO signed a record-breaking £190 million, 7 year contract (it's largest computer purchase todate) with Hewlett Packard (HP) to provide the hardware and software for the next generation of the FCO's secure global IT desktop infrastructure, code name: "Future Firecrest". (See FCO explanation why they need it here to the HOC Public Accounts Committee Jan 2005).... " The e-Diplomacy Strategy was launched in January 2004 to develop the ICT component of the wider FCO Strategy. The e-Diplomacy Strategy seeks to transform the FCO into a single on-line global organisation delivering high quality services to the public ....z z z z zzzzzzzzzz....zzz"

The FCO's internal costs bring the total project value to more than £320 million – the largest contract ever signed by the UK Foreign Office. The system will be managed centrally from the new ICT Building at Hanslope Park, where hundreds more FCO staff from central London will be relocated at the end of the project in 2012 - tracking tortured souls in Uzbek jails and "rendered" CIA prisoners no doubt for Mrs Beckett.... although the Public Accounts committee were told about abducted Czechs and the problems of Stag parties in Prague losing their passports.

Let's hope it's one of the Gubment computer systems that works. For more fascinating views of UK Government spooky real estate give the site a visit.