Daniel Collier

National Assembly for Wales,

Cardiff Bay

                                                                                                                                        13 March 2013

Dear Daniel,

At the Finance Committee meeting of 28 February I agreed to provide further clarification on the delivery of a converged ICT solution for Natural Resources Wales.

The current position and future plans for ICT within NRW is as follows:

• The business case treated ICT as a cost rather than a benefit.

• The profile of ICT expenditure has changed compared to the business case, with more spend being ‘front loaded’ in the current year and the first year of NRW’s operation.  In the main this has been because the business case assumed a period of 3-5 years after vesting when NRW would have access to parent organisation ICT systems and processes. This assumption has been revised such that for the majority of systems access will cease at the end of year 2.  Consequently the delivery of NRW systems and networks has been accelerated; bringing forward increased capital and revenue spend into the programme budget and the first year of NRW’s operation.

• Total projected spend on ICT development in this year and next year is just over £18 million. This is necessary infrastructure and software investment that NRW must make in order that it can begin the process of systems transformation and process improvement that will lead to the release of benefits within the organisation

• As NRW takes forward its own transformation plans, it will identify further financial and effectiveness benefits associated with the implementation of new IT systems.

Many of the systems and processes that NRW will inherit are scaled for England and Wales or GB organisational requirements. NRW has the potential to be more agile and much leaner in its approach to system and process development and management. The impact of these benefits will be from year 3 onwards and are likely to improve the business case position.

I hope this provides the level of clarification that you were seeking. If you have any further questions that I can assist with please don’t hesitate to contact me.

Emyr Roberts

Chief Executive

Natural Resources Wales