The Federal Government has hired technology consulting group Capgemini to look into a whole-of-government procurement arrangement for desktops and office machines, according to Senate Estimates hearings held last week.
(2007-12-28 - Building Computer_0003
image by Allan Chatto, CC2.0)
"We have scoping studies underway in relation to major office machines and, as a linked exercise, desktops. They are being done as separate scoping studies, but given the close potential linkages between the two, we have arranged for the same advisers to work on the two studies," general manager for the Department of Finance and Regulation's Asset Management Group Simon Lewis said, adding that Capgemini had been appointed.
Capgemini currently has two contracts listed on Austender with the Department of Finance and Regulation. The first "business advisory services for scoping study" runs from 20 April to 30 June this year and was worth $56,630. The second, business advisory services runs from 6 April to 5 October and was worth $442,041. Both were with the procurement reporting team.
The estimates session had been talking about coordinated procurement arrangement, which the government is putting in place to try and save costs. Coordinating procurements was one of the recommendations put forward by Sir Peter Gershon in his review of the government's technology spend.
A whole-of-government arrangement has already been put in place for purchasing Microsoft products, which Finance Minister Lindsey Tanner said should save the government $15 million each over the first four years from the contract's commencement in July. Defence was the lead agency for the contract.
It has also previously been revealed that the government has been looking into a similar arrangement for procuring telecommunications services. Lewis said that a scoping study on the possibility, carried out by the Australian Government Information Management Office in coordination with the Department of Finance and Regulation, was now being concluded.
Well, the govts in good hands, Crapgem will suck the coffers dry! They are the masters of scope creep, inflated bills and delivering nothing.