The resignation of Dr Andy Macdonald, the Chief Information Officer for the Federal Government has triggered an implosion at the Office of Government Information Technology (OGIT), Senator Lundy said today.
As predicted by Senator Lundy nearly two months ago, OGIT’s demise was inevitable considering the extremely poor management of the Government’s IT outsourcing program, which is now well documented.
The Commonwealth IT outsourcing program, which was announced in this year’s budget, has been bungled from the start. Savings estimates are now barely 25% of the original claims. The program has attracted comprehensive criticism from all sectors of the information technology industry. The leaking of a cabinet submission showed that even the agencies were highly critical of the plan.
The bypassing of competitive tendering processes through piggybacked contracts and the exclusion of indigenous IT businesses featured prominently in the criticisms. Despite remedial changes on the hop, OGIT were never able to get IT right.
IT outsourcing has also been the subject of a Senate Inquiry, which is due to report next Monday. The timing of this announcement pre-empts the tabling of this report by one working day.
Although the Minister has tried to play down the significance of the demise of OGIT and Mr Macdonald’s departure, there can be no denying that the outsourcing program has failed miserably. To place OGIT in the Office of Asset Sales (OAS) contradicts what the Government has continually stated as their objectives for the IT outsourcing program.
On the 25th April, the Minister for Finance stated (as part of the announcement about the outsourcing program)
‘The move to more open, competitive processes for delivery of IT infrastructure services is in keeping with the Government’s election commitment to streamline the administration of Government and apply the principles of competitive neutrality to improve the management of IT services.’
This proves once again that the Minister’s handling of IT outsourcing is incompetent.
It is ridiculous for the Minister to even try and suggest that the OAS will maintain a “vital policy implementation role” with respect to IT&T.
Proof of the Governments’ disjointed approach lies in the Minister’s nomination of a raft of ‘leading edge work’ that he claims will be done by the new Office of Asset Sales and IT Outsourcing. This cuts directly across the work that has been nominated by Senator Alston in his justification for the establishment for the Office of Information Economy, which is part of the Communications portfolio:
The Government developed NOIE to develop co-ordinate and overview broad policy relating to:
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For the regulatory, legal and physical infrastructure environment for online activities, |
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facilitating electronic commerce |
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ensuring a consistent Commonwealth position in international fora |
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overseeing policies for applying new technology to government administration and information and service provision. |
This Government hasn’t lost its way with IT – it never found it in the first place.
For further information, Contact Kate Lundy on 2300411 or 2773334
