I propose to take Questions Nos. 13 to 15, inclusive, together.
The agreed contract for the publication of the entire Statute Book provided for the production and delivery of 1000 CDs. This was on the basis of a single release which would include Acts and statutory instruments. In the event 100 copies of a CD containing Acts only were released on 17 December 1998. A further 500 copies were ordered shortly afterwards and have been received. This first release was also made available on the Internet. The second release under the original contract of 400 disks containing Acts, statutory instruments and the chronological tables, 1922-98, will be available in May.
However over and above this, 800 further disks, containing Acts only, will be received on 15 February. In addition, the Incorporated Law Society has ordered 2,000 copies of this disk. This will bring the total number of disks containing Acts only produced to 3,400. The total cost of the contract to make the Statute Book available in electronic form is £825,000.
In January, the Office of the Attorney General became aware of a fault in the batch of CDs sold between 17 and 31 December. Pages of text from 11 Acts had not been included on the CD-ROM. This fault was rectified on the second batch of disks received. A notice, offering an exchange for the faulty disk, was placed in the newspapers on 4 February. Before the first batch had gone on sale the contractor had assured the Office of the Attorney General that the disks were free of any major fault. The Office of the Attorney General has asked the contractor to explain the cause of the fault and has insisted that improved quality assurance measures be put in place.