ATO looks to cut 120 IT jobs

The Community and Public Sector Union said today that it has received a letter from the Australian Taxation Office which said the Office intended to cut its IT staff by 120.

(Credit: Liam Tung/ZDNet.com.au)

The union said that the job cuts would come from the ICT business line, including Business Enterprise Support Systems, which it said supported staff when releases of the Office's $700 million Change Program went ahead, making recommendations on alterations.

The union received the letter on Friday and had responded to it on Monday, Rupert Evans, deputy national secretary of the CEPU told ZDNet.com.au. The union is seeking a meeting with the Office, he said.

The reasons quoted in the letter for the cuts were a change of service provider and a push to find savings from implementing recommendations of the Gershon review, Evans said.

The letter didn't specify which service provider it meant, Evans said.

The Australian Taxation Office has been looking for suppliers for three main ICT areas, which were previously all carried out by EDS: a managed network services contract, an end-user computing contract and a centralised computing contract.

The office recently said it was in final negotiations with Optus over the five- to seven-year managed services contract, which was worth around $60 million a year. It expected to finish negotiations soon. Suppliers for the other contracts have not yet been chosen.

The Australian Taxation Office had not yet responded to requests for comment at publication of this article.