"In October, Defra wrote a ( still-accessible) letter to a Parliamentary spending watchdog about "upgrading obsolete devices and software, including removing 31,500 Windows 7 laptops from the estate and upgrading to Windows 10," in response to calls for the department to modernize its IT. The Register reported on the letter, which arrived at the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) more than a year after its May 2024 deadline, and - naturally - noted that Defra had invested heavily in a new OS just as it was approaching Microsoft's support cliff."
"The revised letter confirms that not only were 31,500 aging Windows 7 machines replaced with Windows 10 devices, but the entire laptop estate was subsequently moved to Windows 11 before Windows 10's October 14, 2025, support deadline even arrived. "I am writing to provide an updated version of the previous letter sent by Defra on 10 October 2025. This is to clarify that following the Windows 10 upgrade, Defra moved to Windows 11 in order to keep our systems up to date and secure," wrote Paul Kissack, Defra's permanent secretary."
Defra spent £312 million on a Windows 10 laptop refresh and then moved the entire laptop estate to Windows 11. An October letter to a Parliamentary spending watchdog originally described removing 31,500 Windows 7 devices and upgrading to Windows 10. The Public Accounts Committee confirmed that the original letter contained a factual inaccuracy. A revised letter clarifies that all 31,500 machines were replaced and that the whole estate was upgraded to Windows 11 prior to the Windows 10 support deadline of October 14, 2025. Paul Kissack, Defra's permanent secretary, provided the updated statement confirming the migration.
Read at Theregister
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]