Gateway reviews of Home Office ID Cards programme

OGC received the following request for the following information under the Freedom of Information Act 2000:

I would be grateful if you could send me all Gateway Review reports on the Home Office ID Cards Programme.

OGC took this to mean a request for information contained in two Gate 0 reviews (June 2003 and January 2004) and a Gate 1 review (July 2005). OGC decided to disclose some of the background information contained within the three reports. The remaining information was exempt from disclosure under the Act.

The background information for the two Gate 0 reports has previously been disclosed.

An explanation of what Gateway 0 and 1 reviews cover is available via OGC's website at:

Gateway 0

Gateway 1

The background information for the Gate 1 is as follows:

Gateway Review 1 July 2005

1. The Identity Cards programme aims to provide ID Cards for resident British citizens over 16 and residence permits and registration certificates for non-UK citizens over the age of 16 who wish to reside in the UK for more than 3 months. Initially British citizens will be issued with cards when they renew or apply for passports. The government may designate other documents requiring registration and set a date by which all British citizens and others such as settled foreign nationals, will have to be enrolled.

2. The ID Cards programme will provide a set of accurate, resilient and secure services to:

Compile and maintain a new National Identity Register (NIR) that will record basic identity and residence information on lawful residents in the UK aged 16 and over.
Issue documents that confirm a person's registration - known generically as ID Cards - and issue passports to British citizens resident in the UK.
Provide an enrolment service that establishes and records the basic details of a cardholder's identity.
Provide a service that enables public and private sector organisations to verify a cardholder's identity quickly and easily and which will allow cardholders to check the information held about them.
Provide a service that allows for carefully managed the disclosure of information (without cardholder's consent) to relevant, authorised organisations in certain defined circumstances.
Provide a secure record of identity that other government organisations can rely upon, rather than replicating similar checks and records.

3. These services will be delivered by building upon the infrastructure that UK Passport Services (UKPS) is developing to improve passport security and that which IND and UK Visas are developing to meet their legal obligations. Key objectives are that ID Cards:

Must enable other government departments, private sector organisations and citizens to realise sustained benefits fro using an identity verification service, in line with the Scheme's purpose as set out in the ID Cards legislation and deliver value for money.
Needs to encourage take up of ID Cards and create a service that is commonly used by all individuals: more specifically individuals who are 16 years or over and have been residing in the UK for the prescribed period of 3 months or longer. Eventually enrolment in the Scheme will need to be compulsory to maximise the realisation of the benefits.
Must be compatible with all relevant national and international legislative requirements. This includes international travel document standards to ensure that, the ID Cards can be used as a travel document in the European Economic area and Switzerland and also to enable compulsion.
Must provide an effective customer experience in order to ensure public acceptance, trust and broad acceptance of ID Cards across society.
Needs to be efficient to minimise long term running costs, whilst meeting the performance needs of the Scheme's users the same time. Service Level Agreements must be developed and monitored to ensure that costs are being controlled whilst prescribed targets for service delivery performance and unscheduled availability are met.
Must deliver value for money and be economical.
Must deliver the defined scope on time, to budget and to the prescribed quality standards. Delays in delivery will impact the realisation of benefits.

4. The scheme is challenging in its scale, scope and technology: it must therefore be easy to implement to ensure it is rolled out as planned.

The driving force:

5. The ID Cards programme will deliver a core element of government policy. The processes of verification and maintaining the integrity of data held in the NIR will be fundamental to achieving a number government key policy aims. These will be delivered by a wide range of Departments and Agencies across Whitehall in the following ways:

Disrupting the activities of organised crime and terrorism that depend in part on the ability to create false identities.
Reducing identity fraud, by providing unique biometric identifiers to confirm that the holder of an ID Card is the owner of the registered identity.
Tackling immigration abuse, by providing the facility to check easily an individual's immigration status.
Reducing illegal working, by enabling employers to check whether a potential employee has the right to work in the UK - both illegal immigration and illegal working place significant burdens on society, communities and the economy.
Facilitating free, faster and more efficient access to public services for those entitled to receive them.

6. The Government believes that the introduction of ID Cards will also in time bring a wide range of direct benefits to citizens in their daily lives.

The procurement status:

7. Procurement strategies are being considered but there has been no major procurement activity at this point in the programme.

The current position regarding OGC Gateway Reviews:

8. A Gate 0 review was completed in January 2004.

9. There have been four major changes since the previous review:

An ID Cards bill is now before parliament.
A New Agency is being established to bring together UKPS and the ID Cards programme.
The earlier proposal for a CIPS population register managed by ONS is being subsumed within the NIR.
PA Consulting have been appointed as Delivery Partner for the current stages of the programme.

Purposes of the OGC Gateway Review

10. The primary purpose of an OGC Gateway Review 1 is to confirm that the business case is robust; that it meets business needs, is affordable, achievable and likely to achieve value for money with appropriate options explored. Appendix A gives the full purposes statement for an OGC Gateway Review 1.

Conduct of the OGC Gateway Review

11. This OGC Gateway Review 1 was carried out from 12th July 2005 to 15th July 2005 at 2 Marsham Street, London, SW1P 4DF. The team members are listed on the front cover. The people interviewed are listed in Appendix B.

12. The review team would like to acknowledge the helpfulness and openness of all those who contributed to the review. In particular we would like to express our appreciation of the help provided by all those people involved in setting up and ensuring that the programme of interviews ran smoothly.