HM Revenue & Customs upgrading its system, switched off 19 key online services, the majority over a whole weekend, to thoroughly test its systems. Services switched off included the pay as you earn system, stamp duty, VAT online and individual self-assessment. Corporation tax systems were switched off earlier.

The child trust fund, pension schemes, construction industry scheme, EC sales list, employee share scheme, new computerised transit system, new export system, reverse charge sales list, online agent authorisation, and shared workspace scheme, were all affected.

HMRC  declined to say what upgrades it was making, or when they will go live, but added that they were all “scheduled”. It is thought they could be targeted to go live before the new tax year begins at the end of April.
The changes could be part of an ongoing transformation programme to standardise and simplify systems at HMRC. That programme is also aimed at improving customer service and transactional speed, as well as improving data management.

In October, HMRC announced that it had renegotiated some of the terms on its £8.5bn Aspire contract with supplier Capgemini, focused on saving a further £110m annually, in addition to the £70m agreed two years ago. To achieve the savings, it is standardising systems onto “common industry components”, simplifying and modernising its technology and attempting to better integrate its software. Fujitsu and Accenture are subcontractors on Aspire, which runs until 2017. And its not such a stuffy place as one might imagine. Take a look at the HMRC Charterpelago really cool graphics!

Spending for speed, looking to MillenniumIT
The London Stock Exchange booked £20.4m costs over six months on TradElect, its electronic trading platform that is to be scrapped in a year.

The six months’ booked costs, from the drive to speed up the platform and also accelerate depreciation on the group's accounts, exceeds the £18m that the LSE spent on buying the open source trading software house, MillenniumIT.

The TradElect system, five times slower than reported rivals speeds was upgraded in 2008 by Accenture for £40m based on Microsoft.Net architecture, HP ProLiant servers and Cisco networks.

When the LSE acquired MillenniumIT, it said it would spend £30m on TradElect to the end of 2010, when it will be fully replaced by the new platform. Costs will focus mainly on speeding up the platform, which has been far outdone on messaging speed by rivals such as Chi-Xi, messaging at a reported 0.4 milliseconds, five times faster than the latest upgrades made TradElect.

The new MillenniumIT system would give the LSE “a high performance, lower cost and highly scalable trading platform, significantly faster and more competitive”, the group said. The system is aimed at saving the LSE over £10m a year from 2012. It will also bring in-house LSE’s software development, provide “dedicated R&D support”, and offer new revenue streams by selling technology to other financial markets.