Australian Government chief information officer Ann Steward defended last night's Federal Budget in a speech at the CeBIT conference this morning, saying that despite some complaints that it was light on tech spend, there had been ICT initiatives.
Australian Government chief information officer Ann Steward defended last night's Federal Budget in a speech at the CeBIT conference this morning, saying that despite some complaints that it was light on tech spend, there had been ICT initiatives.
No doubt there's no big major huge one like the Systems for People, but there's still very strong investment
Federal Govt CIO Ann Steward
"I'm often
asked whether or not there was going to be more money in the budget
for ICT," Steward said. "I'd ask you to look through what was
delivered last night."
The CIO said the government had a strong commitment in technology
spread across a wide variety of programs: "In looking at the
totality of them — very significant amounts of money."
Steward named welfare agency Centrelink as one of the places that would be seeing
activity in IT, but also talked about an initiative on e-security
that her Australian Government Information Office (AGIMO) would be
undertaking with the help of the Attorney-General and the Defence Signals
Directorate, which would see the reduction of web gateways and the
building of a skills base for security needs.
The CIO said that IT would be involved in some budgeted work in
support of the Child Support Agency, and that the environmental,
innovation and education departments all had technology
elements.
"No doubt there's no big major huge one like the Systems for
People, but there's still very strong investment," she said.
The CIO also commented on the government's progress with adopting recommendations of the Gershon report after a
brief introduction by Finance Minister Lindsey Tanner, who was
unable to attend CeBIT because of the Budget but had recorded a
brief update on the government's progress on ICT.
"We're now well
advanced in implementing many aspects of the report," Tanner
said.
Of the 39 enabling projects that were recommended as part of
the reform agenda, Steward said that 10 have already been delivered despite being due by June 2009. Five more will be
delivered by the end of June and five more required beyond that
time frame were "already well advanced".
Steward said that phase one of the business as part of the
ICT reform agenda had been completed, with $100 million of savings being
identified from 53 agencies. Half of those savings come back for
reinvestment in a fund. "It's money that can now ... be focused back
into the agencies to help them improve on an ongoing basis," she
said. Phase two of the business as usual would see further savings
identified through to the end of the year.
She added that part of the reform would be working with other
government policies such as the National Broadband Network and the
government's green push.
We're now well advanced in implementing many aspects of the report
Finance Minister Lindsay Tanner
Some quick wins on the green front had come from automatically
shutting down desktops and laptops after hours, implementing static screensavers and providing guidance to agencies around power and energy levels, particularly in datacentres. AGIMO was also developing a green
procurement kit. The target for this was the first quarter of 2010.
AGIMO was also working on a client and supplier code of contact
as well as building methodologies for agencies, to help agencies understand the maturity level that exists in an organisation before
enabling them to take on new work.
On datacentres, the government had been engaging with industry,
Steward said, with over 60 entities sharing their thoughts at recent industry briefings. Steward assured the industry it would play a
part.
"It is important to understand ... it is not a predisposed
position from government that it will build its facility, that
there will only be one, nor that it will only be in one location," she said. "It's important to have obviously redundancy across our environment
and understanding that we have major government agencies throughout
Australia."
Steward also touched on staff and the success the government was
having in recruiting via apprenticeship and cadetship programs.
AGIMO had in mind that the next 10 years would see 40 per cent of
its skills base retire.
Queensland ICT Minister Robert Schwarten also spoke this morning
about what was happening in ICT in his state. He praised the
Federal Government's plan for a National Broadband Network, and said it was perfect for Queensland, which has most of its
population outside Brisbane. He also spoke of the new, more
user-friendly, video-conferencing systems that needed the
bandwidth. He hoped to pull savings from using them instead of
buying airfares.
He touched on the new tier three datacentre in Springfield the government moved to and also shared procurement, which made
sure that agencies didn't go their own way and buy incompatible
systems. "It does require a little less democracy — with
agencies having to be mandated as to the systems they can use," he
said, but added that it made sense.