THE federal Government is considering using a strike force to drive greater efficiencies in its technology operations.The group could operate as part of the Australian Government Information Management Office.
Finance Minister Lindsay Tanner has asked that Peter Gershon look at beefing up AGIMO`s responsibilities as part of his review of the government`s $6 billion annual IT spending.
So far, the office has largely focused on developing web-based initiatives for the government, such as its Wiki-based platform, GovDex and the $42 million central online portal, australia. gov.au. "The difficulty we`ve got at the moment is that AGIMO`s role is very limited because you`ve got all the decision-making responsibility in individual agencies," Mr Tanner said.
"I wouldn`t pre-empt the outcomes of the Gershon Review, but a specific thing we`ve asked him to report on is options for a more centrally co-ordinated set of arrangements, and that by definition would involve AGIMO or an equivalent playing a bigger role in technology projects."
This includes the idea of assembling an IT strike force of experienced IT campaigners to direct projects across the government`s 800-plus agencies.
"One of the key reasons you end up with costs blowouts is because the project has been inadequately scoped or the implementation is not as efficient as it could be," Mr Tanner said.
"There are all kinds of things that can occur, such as policy decisions halfway through projects, which ultimately trigger big cost blowouts and are not the fault of the suppliers.
"To what extent does the government need some kind of central pool of expertise to assist with that process?"
The consultancy group would be positioned to advise the government on how it could approach the issue of overhauling the hundreds of disparate legacy system that drive its operations.
Mr Tanner repeatedly pointed to cost blowouts and delays in the Department of Immigration and Citizenship`s Systems for People technology transformation project as an example of what the government was looking to avoid in future projects.
It was necessary to assess the needs of individual agencies to see where a legacy systems overhaul was needed most, and to avoid failures such as those that occurred in Immigration, he said.
"The Department of Defence`s ICT needs are very different from those of Centrelink, which in turn will be very different from those of the quarantine service. There`ll be things like back-office, human resources and in-house finance - things that will be relatively similar across most of government.
"The former government made the mistake of being too decentralised and literally telling several hundred agencies to just go do what you like, in effect. I don`t want to make the opposite mistake of imposing a straitjacket on everybody, saying here`s the single system, and you`ve got to use it whether you like it or not."
AGIMO is showing renewed vigour under the guidance of Mr Tanner and is facilitating talks with a number of agencies about creating a standard, cross-agency repository to hold clients` identity details.
The talks, first flagged earlier this month, have not yet entered the formal stages but are aimed at developing an opt-in process so citizens` information can be shared across agencies if it has been verified once.
