The Ministry of Defence has signed two new contracts for its IT and communications supply that will bring huge savings of over £1 billion over ten years as well as significantly improving capability. All the savings made will be reinvested directly into defence, helping to bring new equipment and programmes to fruition, thereby strengthening national security.

The ATLAS Consortium – a collaborative team led by HP and including Fujitsu, Airbus Defence and Space, and CGI – will provide a secure New Style of IT (NSoIT) to the majority of defence users in offices, headquarters and deployed bases by September 2016. The NSoIT contract is worth £933 million and is a renegotiation of the original extension of the Defence Information Infrastructure (DII) contract.

Meanwhile, Fujitsu has been awarded a contract worth in excess of £550 million to provide defence core global connectivity services for the next five years. A further announcement will follow on the award of a contract for voice, video and mobile phone elements which will complement the other capabilities being delivered and allow defence military and civilian users to exploit them to their fullest potential.

The new contracts transform the delivery of information and communication technology across defence, providing a new IT system fully exploiting the power of cloud computing, along with Microsoft Office 365 software, and securely delivering greater agility and mobility to Service personnel wherever they may be. This move is a significant upgrade of current capability and will put defence on the front foot with its industry partners to deal with global threats to national security.

Defence Secretary Michael Fallon said: “We must keep pace with those who pose a threat to UK security, whether overt or cyber-based. The new contracts will enhance our fighting capability and make us more efficient in our work.

“Alongside this enhanced capability we have managed to secure huge savings of £1 billion over ten years. All of this money will be reinvested back into defence, ultimately helping keep Britain safe.”