Looking at this FoI - 20200707 FOI04929 Ashby WestminsterCadetITsystem Response.pdf
the Westminster application is an Army application that is managed by HQ Regional Command, Cadets Branch and Army Digital (formally IAS). The Marine Society and Sea Cadets are also a stakeholder in the project and work closely with Cadets Branch in HQ Regional Command. The system was designed by the Sea Cadets and Army Cadets in 2005 as part of union project between the Cadet Forces.
Thank you for this (I knew there had to be at least one FOI)
I wonder then that as the air cadets were not part of the union they would have to pay licensing to the army? I remember Dawn Mc saying that there was a big yearly financial impact if we did move over.
But how big is big? Is it Ā£10000 or Ā£1000000? Or moreā¦ As that makes a massive difference.
Plus I donāt really get why weād need a buy in? If this has been produced by the MOD, then it shouldnāt matter which elements of the MOD get a use out of it surely?
Perhaps an FOI to RAFAC on decision naming regarding RAFAC use of the Westminster system?
It is based off of an Oracle system, so there could be potential licencing requirements there. Given the amount of users it already has though, I fail to see how it could be cheaper to do anything else. Sure, you can develop a system from scratch, but that will have its own costs in terms of developers, support, devops etc. It is usually cheaper to expand a system than to run two independently.
Looking at the source, I think it is Oracle Apex.
Weāve recently ditched an oracle based HR system at Work due running costs so it might be this issue rather than a licensing off the MoD.
Googling āOracle Licenses costsā does start to be eye-watering license amounts.
Technical question - whatās the base coding for Bader?
Interesting that Westminster were looking at using Ultilearn back in the day. 20121008-Minutes of the RTO Meeting 6 Oct 12 (Para. 76)
It does, but when you consider the salaries you would need to pay developers to create (and maintain) a bespoke system, it isnāt quite so bad. When you then pay for infrastructure on top (which you have to anyway), this cost isnāt a big deal. Also remember we are already paying for it - it isnāt like you need to go out and buy it all from scratch.
Plus this issue of course leads to the problem where CCF(RAF) units are having to use both systems at the same time. Duplicating admin burden for those CFAVs!
The ACO was originally slated to use Westminster, however a case was made that a volunteer in Greater Manchester Wing (a former forum member) could deliver something better. It was declared by the Westminster Team that the project didnāt have any legs and thus Project Bader was born.
Microsoft licences arenāt cheap either, yet this is what Bader appears to be built on.
My org pays Ā£5 per user per month for individual MS application access, on top of any base rates (figure unknown).
Even if, by some miracle, the various platforms of Bader were costed as single licence then, spread over all (IIRC) 20k CFAV users in the ATC, that would amount to Ā£100k per month total for a system that doesnāt do half of what we want it to.
AFAIK our 365 licences cost multiple millions of Ā£ per years, so a lot more than 100k/month. At least thatās what was said a while ago when discussing staff cadet email access.
And yet there is a perfectly good email system available within Defence Gateway. Ok, the web interface is worse than contracting bubonic plague, but if you use an IMAP client it is fine.
I doubt we pay ālistā price and afaik it is a self hosted (MOD hosted) system not Microsoft. But still probably not cheap.
Oddly we could get O365 or Google Workspace FOC as charitiesā¦
Weāll pay more, because we have to use MOD procurement so canāt buy direct from Micro$oft.
The MOD will also require certain guarantees in order to accredit it to OFFICIAL-SENSITIVE PERSONAL. An OFFICIAL-only system, without caveats, would be a nightmare.
I donāt know about Google Workspace, but MS do definitely charge charities for O365 - my day job is for a charity that uses O365. Either that, or I need to have a strong word with our procurement team.
It depends on the licence tier. There was a post on here a while back saying we could have a number of licences FOC.
The caveat may be that paid staff canāt have free licences (but then CFAV arenāt paid staff 
).
Again Iāve only implemented Workspace for volunteer use but it was free and fairly simple to set up.
I went through Charity Digital, previously TechSoup.