To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to Answer of 7
January 2019 to Question 203449 on Drugs, what recruitment has taken place to staff
the additional medicine warehousing capacity referred to in that Answer.
<p>Contract agreements for storage have recently been signed or will be signed imminently.
We have agreed funding on the condition that the additional medicine warehousing capacity
is in place in time to accommodate stockpiled medicines by the beginning of February
2019.</p><p> </p><p>Those warehouses are all in existence and have planning permission.
It is for those contractors to determine the best means of ensuring that the warehouses
are adequately staffed in line with their normal business practices.</p>
To ask the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross representing the
House of Commons Commission, pursuant to the Answer of 8 July 2014, Official Report,
column 176-7W, on computer software, what further feedback the Commission has received
from (a) hon. Members, (b) hon. Members' staff and (c) other users on migration to
Office 365 since that Answer was given.
<p>In the period 22 June to 16 July, 3,482 mailboxes assigned to hon. Members and
their staff had been migrated. In that period, PICT logged 766 cases from hon. Members
and their staff – either by phone or at PICT Local – directly related to issues resulting
from the migration of their mailboxes. Parliamentary ICT (PICT) acknowledges that
the implementation has not been as simple and straightforward as was hoped, and is
aware that it has caused problems for some hon. Members.</p><p>Since the answer to
the hon. Member on 8 July, three hon. Members have given PICT written feedback on
the migration of their mailbox. One was complimenting the PICT team on making it a
smooth process. One was questioning the process and the distinction between the upgrade
to Office 2013 and the migration of a mailbox to Microsoft 365. One had a problem
with the limit on the number of people who can be added to a single email distribution
list in Microsoft 365.</p><p>Two further hon. Members have given positive oral feedback
and asked to join the pilot of the wider suite of tools within Microsoft 365. Oral
feedback from the teams of House staff who are also piloting the use of this wider
suite of tools continues to be positive.</p><p>The Director of PICT would be delighted
to meet the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife, or any other interested Member,
to discuss the feedback in more detail.</p>
