FCO leaves 10,000 PCs on overnight

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) has admitted that it leaves 10,000 of the department's computers on around the world overnight.

After being questioned by the shadow environment secretary Peter Ainsworth as to the government policy regarding computer systems in the department, FCO parliamentary under-secretary Meg Munn stated that she could not value the power consumed due to varying international energy prices.

Tt was estimated that four million kilowatts per hour per day was the equivalent of the output of a 1.7 megawatt wind turbine or the amount of electricity needed for over 300 homes a year, based on the assumption that each PC was not being used for 14 hours of the day.

Ms Munn added: "It has been our assessment that the risk of lost productivity and the risk to national security that this policy avoids outweighed its cost."

The FCO is currently based in King Charles Street, with the office's building completed in 1868.

According to a recent survey by Connect, the two biggest IT headaches for businesses were 'everyday hassles with IT' (37 per cent) and 'security concerns' (32 per cent) In a recent survey of SMEs for Connect, the two most important benefits of outsourcing were 'guaranteed response times' and 'allowing in-house IT staff to concentrate on more strategic issues'