Request
Please could you tell me the total cost incurred, so far, in creating the new Catalogue system called Omega (sometimes called the Pan Archival Catalogue) which The National Archive is building in-house.
Please include the total employment costs for all internal and external staff providing any work or assistance with the project, including (but not limited to) software engineers, user designers, testers, architects, data analysts, researchers, project managers, and also support roles such as team leaders and managers. Where someone isn’t working full time on the project, their costs can be assigned pro-rata, approximately if necessary.
Please also include any costs for purchasing software licences and support, engaging external consultants, architects, testers, reviewers, assessors or specialists, and other expenses such as travel.
Please include costs from the beginning of the project, which I believe will date from at least 2019 if not earlier.
I don’t need a breakdown of these costs, just a single £ figure will suffice.
Outcome
Information provided.
Response
Project Omega was initiated in November 2019 with an exploratory phase that ran into the summer of 2020. Active development of a system based on the conclusions of this exploratory phase began in January 2021. From April 2021 this work was managed, and costs were tracked, as part of the Digital Archiving Programme.
With regards to internal staff, costs have been included where they have been associated with the project through being recharged to capital and this leads to a total figure (for the entire period November 2019 to the end of October 2023) of £2,544,939.