The Australian Information Industry Association (AIIA) made the claim in a public statement today after the Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts, Helen Coonan, recently released a report saying small to medium enterprises were receiving up to 30 percent of government ICT contracts and their share of the market was growing.
After listing what it believed were the flaws of the report -- based on an analysis of Gazette Publishing System data -- the AIIA said "On balance, [we believe] the report overstates the small-to-medium enterprise share of the federal government ICT procurement market".
AIIA chief executive officer, Rob Durie, told ZDNet Australia that there was "a lot of goodwill and intent" from the government despite the report and earlier concerns expressed by the AIIA over the time taken by officials to enact pre-election commitments to ease ICT supplier liability provisions and provide a better deal on intellectual property retention. He conceded, however, that "the execution is leaving something to be desired".
Durie said the AIIA wanted the Department of Communications, Information Technology and the Arts to engage consultants to analyse statistics derived from government financial management information systems would yield better results. "The FMIS figures are far more reliable as they record an agency's actual expenditure," the AIIA said.
Durie, said the limitations of the government's tender for the just-released GaPS-based report restricted the value of its findings.
"GaPS lists contracts rather than actual expenditure," he said. "As a result, many of the figures listed in the report vastly understate agency spend.
"In addition, agencies do not list all contracts, or leave a significant 'lag time' between the letting of the contract and its listing on GaPS.
"The incomplete nature of the data means that the figures in the report significantly understate actual expenditure on ICT, both for individual agencies and the total government spend".
Durie also said those looking at the report should also not rely on the contract value data, saying the report could not state what proportion of the contract was delivered or if the agency had ultimately overspent.
"This report can't tell us how much was actually spent in the delivery of the contract. Was it more or less that the value of the contract reported to GaPS?.
"Of most concern," he said, was "the fact that the report also includes 'bodyshopping', (the practice of hiring contractors for small, in-house departmental work that in the past would have been carried out by employees), which further distorts the figures in favour of small-to-medium enterprises.
Durie added that the AIIA expected to receive a consultation draft of a new standard government IT contract including the new intellectual property and liability provisions within the next two months.
He added that the AIIA was making good progress in negotiations with the states to achieve similar ICT procurement objectives.
As I've said before, public servants are a waste of space.