Published on the 21/01/2014 | Written by Newsdesk
Victoria has set itself a target to achieve 15 percent direct cost reduction by the end of the year by re-using or sharing ICT solutions across different agencies as part of a continued technology overhaul…
Industry has just over a fortnight left to respond to the second stage of the Victorian Government’s ICT Strategy which was released this week.
Technology minister Gordon Rich-Phillips said that the strategy, first unveiled in February last year was intended to guard against technology-related budget blow outs which he claimed had reached $1.4 billion under the previous government as projects such as HealthSmart and Myki ballooned.
The Victorian Government claimed that in the last year it had already saved more than $15 million by renegotiating whole-of-government technology contracts. The strategy can be viewed, and comments made at www.digital.vic.gov.au.
Victoria is also overhauling Cenitex – once intended as a central provider of Government IT services, and now recast as a centralised procurement and service management unit. Victoria’s refreshed ICT strategy reconfirms that; “at the infrastructure level Government will progressively withdraw from direct service delivery,” instead harnessing a mix of insourced, managed and outsourced service delivery.
In short it’s a buy it first, build it last approach. There’s also clear enthusiasm for cloud services – evidenced by the glowing profile of Victoria’s Department of Business and Innovation which has overcome privacy concerns and is now using Salesforce for client management.
Australia’s major States have all returned to the drawing board with regard to ICT strategies in the last two years, abandoning centrally provided shared services models in favour of a largely cloud-first approach even where cloud services may be provided out of Government owned data centres (as is the case in NSW).
There is also appetite for greater transparency and accountability regarding ICT investment.
NSW for example now operates under an IT strategy with defined milestones against which it benchmarks its progress. Victoria’s strategy similarly has clearly defined milestones and targets – for example it has pledged in its latest strategy to establish five “service interoperability” projects by July this year to promote cross-agency data sharing.
Queensland went a step further and introduced ICT dashboards, allowing the progress of different projects to be tracked online as part of its reworked ICT strategy. However earlier this month reports emerged that Glenn Walker the state executive director of ICT renewal in Queensland, will leave that position in early February, forcing the State to find a new champion for the reform initiative.
