DHS IT union no govt template: Wadeson

The Department of Human Services' (DHS) proposed consolidation of ICT infrastructure could not be applied across government as the systems are too different, according to outgoing head of IT with the department, John Wadeson.

John Wadeson
(Credit: ZDNet Australia)

The Federal Government allocated over half a billion dollars in the Federal Budget this year to the consolidation of ICT infrastructure for Centrelink, Medicare and the Child Support Agency into the Department of Human Services. Wadeson told an audience at CeBIT in Sydney this afternoon that it was his belief that this consolidation could not be expanded to become a whole-of-government approach.

"If you look at the agencies that have come together in this group, they all have a mainframe with a big amount of customer data on it," he said. "I think the efficiencies around linking up organisations with similar infrastructure are pretty clear to see."

"I think it gets less clear when you [look at] Foreign Affairs that run a whole lot of overseas cables ... different sort of skills sets. No one wants to go near Defence because they drag in a security regime you probably don't want too," he said.

Wadeson said, however, that such a consolidation could possibly work for state governments.

He noted that DHS had successfully integrated the IT from the Department of Veterans Affairs two weekends ago as part of its integration.

Wadeson will retire from his position in September and the department has begun the search for a new CIO.