[wdmmg-discuss] COINS contract

Wed Mar 31 17:30:28 UTC 2010

On 10-03-31 17:53, Julian Todd wrote:
> Fairly standard in that it is dated 1999 (before FOI).  Doesn't
> mention anything about trade secrets.  Therefore FOI should trump
> this, unless they can prove that trade secrets are in the
> screen-shots, and competitors never get hold of each other's
> instruction manuals.  Who are there competitors anyway?
>   

I suppose if we were to make a good visualisation tool, Terrasolve
(Decisys) would consider *us* a competitor :P Though trade secrets are
not explicitly mentioned, they could be taken as implied by the
"Intellectual Property Rights" section. Manuals and documentation
doubtless form part of the Deliverable. FOI doesn't exempt the
government from contracts it has entered into.

> We may still be barking up the wrong hat-stand.  COINS is probably no
> more than a visualization tool -- not the database.  What we need is
> the part which explains how they import the data from the "*.money"
> file they get emailed from the Home Office, and then go for these
> imports.
>   

That would seem to be borne out by http://www.terasolve.com/camelot.html
which seems to be the software mentioned in the contract.

Not so sure the Home Office is the (only) source of the data though, at
the very least I would expect the Foreign Office to similarly send
information to the treasury.

A reasonable follow-up might be to ask for the tender documents and
project specifications that led to this contract being awarded (ideally
along with their responses). Normally we would find the data sources
that were to be processed spelled out there (otherwise how could
companies be expected to bid sensibly?).

-w

-- 
William Waites <wwaites at gmail.com>
Mob: +44 789 798 9965
Fax: +44 131 464 4948

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