British efficiency expert Sir Peter Gershon has suggested agency budget cuts totalling $540 million, castigating the federal public sector for poor governance mechanisms on technology projects and an ICT spending model which gave individual departments and agencies too much autonomy.
The Australian government late yesterday released Sir Peter Gershon's report into federal public sector use of information and communications technology.
Sir Peter Gershon will return to Canberra next week as the British efficiency guru gears up to deliver a landmark report to finance and deregulation minister Lindsay Tanner on how the federal public sector could better spend its annual $6 billion IT budget.
The Australian Government Information Management Office (AGIMO) has labelled a newspaper report "factually incorrect" that said it had moved to a strategy of centralised IT procurement before the findings of the Gershon review which will be released next month.
The Gershon report's recommendation for the Federal Government to reduce its reliance on ICT contractors was based on flawed data, according to ITCRA, an organisation which represents Australian technology recruiters.
Microsoft is going to be given a beating over the next year or so by government agencies wanting to adopt Windows 7 at bargain basement prices. But it will enjoy each gentle slap.
The long-term net impact of Gershon's idealistic review will realistically be negligible at best and at worst will prove to be a distraction for years to come.
Gershon's recommendations are consistent with those of other jurisdictions that have undertaken similar reviews, and are aimed at giving the ICT centralisation/decentralisation pendulum a shove back towards the centre. This is, however, easier said than done.
Canberra apparently has two plagues: kangaroos and IT contractors. After years fattening up on Canberra's fields, they've been marked by the government for a major cull. But is the latter group still the problem they once were?
Ahead of the election, with promises for nationwide broadband networks and digital revolutions in schools, the ICT industry could hope the government was on their side. But now the glamour of a sparkling new government has worn off, how ICT-friendly is the Rudd government really?
A year from taking on perhaps the toughest IT job in the country, Defence chief information officer Greg Farr is staring down the barrel of a massive ICT reform agenda for 2009 that will reveal whether Defence got the "expert CIO" they needed.
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