Accountancy firm Ernst & Young has been paid nearly £5m to manage a £125m Ministry of Justice IT contract awarded last week, the Gazette can reveal.  

 A spokesman for the MoJ said the Big Four firm is providing specialist oversight on the ‘radical IT changes’ the ministry is making through its Future IT Services programme.

The MoJ announced last week that US-based Lockheed Martin had beaten IBM to become preferred bidder for the contract. The programme aims to centralise IT across courts, the National Offender Management Service and the MoJ’s headquarters. Lockheed Martin will replace three different suppliers and provide IT services to 90,000 users.

Georgina O’Toole of IT analysts TechMarketView noted that the £125m contract breached a principle established by the current government that no single IT contract should exceed £100m in value. However, she said the work would be spread among several partner firms. Lockheed Martin will integrate services from IT firm Atos, consultancy Cadence Partnership and IT company Skyscape Cloud Services, she said.

During the procurement process a number of bidders dropped out of the running, apparently fearing that the task of integrating the justice system’s IT components would be too onerous.

In a speech to magistrates last week, justice secretary Chris Grayling bemoaned the current state of IT across the justice system, citing ‘systems that won’t talk to each other’ and the need for photocopying and rescanning of files.

The MoJ estimates the programme will save £200m upon completion in 2016. ‘We are making our systems more digital, flexible and responsive,’ said the MoJ spokesman.