We are not convinced by the Department’s assertion that it will meet its target delivery of a minimum of 85% by 2025 despite having signed no new infrastructure subsidy contracts for Project Gigabit. The Department’s previous target proved to be unachievable. Despite revising the overall target, the Department’s target dates for signing contracts with gigabit suppliers to begin laying gigabit infrastructure have continually slipped. At our last evidence session, in November 2020, we called for the Department to provide a broad timetable or indicative dates for the essential steps towards achieving its targets, which the Department repeatedly declined owing to it awaiting Ministerial approvals. The Department is still unable to provide detailed information about how long it expects the contracting process to take. The Department previously informed us that contracts would be operating by the fourth quarter of 2021. It has since moved this to May 2022 in the Project Gigabit Summer update. This changed again to June to August 2022 in the Autumn update. The Department contends that the delay is positive, as it is the result of unprecedented levels of interest and activity from commercial providers. As a result, it is re-planning which areas it will need to deliver gigabit coverage through infrastructure subsidy contracts but stated in evidence that that it did not expect in future to have to replan to the degree that we have in the past 12 months.1 Recommendation: In line with its Treasury Minute response, the Department should write to us setting out in detail how it will deliver 85% coverage by 2025, including: • the baselines it is using, and overall progress against these; and • what new infrastructure contracts it has signed and how many more contracts it requires to be in place and by when in order to meet its overall target. The Department should also adopt a flexible procurement approach which allows it to respond to market developments without endlessly delayin