Tanner claims Gershon victory

Finance Minister Lindsay Tanner today said the government had found an additional $430 million in projected savings from its annual IT spend, meaning it had satisfied the Gershon Review's target of shaving off $1 billion a year.

The savings, targeted at so-called "business as usual" spending on information and communication technology (ICT) within federal government agencies, are expected to be realised between 2010-11 and 2012-13, according to a statement by Tanner.

"The completion of the second phase of this program means the savings foreshadowed by Sir Peter Gershon have now been realised," Tanner said in a statement today.

The UK thrift-expert conducted a review of the Australian government's $6 billion-a-year spend on ICT. The review covered the agencies use of contracted IT workers, datacentres and IT outsourcing. Gershon said at the report's release that many agencies acted "as though they were independent private sector entities".

Larger agencies were asked to find savings of between 10-15 per cent while smaller agencies were asked to find between 2 and 5 per cent.

The government does not intend to release an account of savings delivered by each agency. However, some key initiatives it has announced include the signing of a whole-of-government Microsoft licensing deal through the Department of Defence. Tanner has also recently selected a panel of datacentre providers as part of its plan to centralise control over agencies' use of computing power.

Round two of the Gershon program followed completion of the prior stage in April this year, according to Tanner, which had identified $570 million in savings.