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Gershon Review and the ‘Stage Two’ Cuts |
Issue No: 131 (14 April 2008)
The Medium - Your Channel To Government ICT Information
The big news this week is the announcement of a major review of the Federal Government's management of ICT. It will be led by Sir Peter Gershon who is credited with a series of reviews that resulted in major procurement efficiencies in the UK. This review will have a significant impact on the future of the Federal ICT market.
Intermedium has scheduled a briefing in Canberra next Tuesday (22 April) to analyse the implications of the Gershon review.
Top 5 Contracts
Top of the list is a $32.6m Customs contract with EDS, a 12 month extension of the existing outsourcing arrangement. ATO also reported contracts with Telstra ($23m) and Telstra Business Systems ($14.7m). Customs reported a contract with Unisys ($5.2m) and ASIC reported a contract with Objective Corporation ($2.2m).
Regards
Fleur Bayley
Editor, The Medium
www.intermedium.com.au
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Tanner Announces Major Review of Federal ICT Management and Procurement
Finance Minister Lindsay Tanner has revealed his strategy for achieving ‘stage 2’ cuts in Federal Government ICT expenditure with the announcement of an independent review of the Australian Government's management of information and communication technology. Read more |
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Tender Released for National Broadband Rollout
On Friday, Senator Stephen Conroy, Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, announced the release of a Request for Proposals (RFP) to roll-out and operate the National Broadband Network. He said, “This is a major step towards delivering on the Government’s election commitment to enable world-class, high-speed broadband for all Australians". A decision is expected by the end of the year. Read more |
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ATO Briefs Industry on End-User Computing Tender
On Wednesday 9 April, the ATO held the second industry briefing in its current sourcing program, this time covering end-user computing (EUC). The large audience included industry vendors and a number of ‘interested observers’ from other Federal agencies, suggesting that the ATO may be one of the first agencies to implement some of the Government’s new approach on ICT procurement.
This component of the current contract is worth around $40 million a year, but this is expected to grow to $60 million per year. Responses to the EOI are sought from “clear prime contractors”. The EUC procurement arrangement covers 33,000 workstations and laptops, around 1,800 printers (MFDs are excluded at this stage) and 370 infrastructure servers, with the contract potentially to last for 10 years. Other mobile devices may fall within scope as the ATO develops its capability in response to emerging technologies. Arnold Ellem, Assistant Commissioner, Corporate Procurement stressed that prospective bidders must ensure they monitor both the ATO website and Austender as the sole sources of accurate information regarding the procurement.
The presence of so many observers from other agencies, together with the ATO predicating its presentation with a statement on emerging Federal Government procurement policy (below), suggests a growing likelihood of standardisation and consolidation of EUC procurement, perhaps through an expansion of contract “piggybacking”, as the Rudd Government reins in ICT spending.
“…Commonwealth policy to develop a centralised procurement system for the delivery of certain goods and services to Commonwealth departments and agencies, where it can be established that the centralised procurement of those goods and services could deliver savings to the Commonwealth.”
Acting ATO CIO Todd Heather, and ICT Sourcing Program Director Narelle Dotta both underscored the critical importance of proven and effective service management as a key requirement for the successful contractor. Todd Heather noted that ATO systems are now increasingly required to be available 24/7 by external customers and stakeholders, and monitoring and support must accommodate this. When questioned, he noted the current public sector sensitivity towards off-shore services but acknowledged this may need to be accommodated over the potential 10 year life of the contract.
ATO intends to short-list respondents to the EOI by mid-July, and the three to six short-listed companies will be invited to participate in a series of workshops (August-September) to enable the ATO to finalise its requirements and the bundle scope. While it was clearly stated that short-listed respondents would not be evaluated on their participation in these workshops, they were urged to “bring the best team”.
The ATO is not committed to issuing an RFT, but if one is issued (around November 2008), the process will short-list two potential prime contractors with whom parallel negotiations will be held. The EOI that will be issued on 28 April and will cover:
The ATO representatives emphasised that this deal would enable the ATO's workforce to become more mobile, while at the same time retaining a secure environment.
All details and a copy of the briefing including a full transcript will be published on the ATO website. Background The EUC is the second tranche of a three-stage market test for the ATO’s IT outsourcing procurement. The ATO announced in October 2007 that it would open IT outsourcing contracts worth over $1b to multiple suppliers, ending its single-supplier arrangement with EDS that had been in place since 1999. The ATO identified three ICT infrastructure bundles for market testing. The first went to the market with a tender (EOI) for Managed Network Services released in January 2008. Following the Managed Network Services tender, and the forthcoming End-user Computing EOI, the final tender will be for "centralised computing" such as the ATO's mainframe computing needs, mid-range storage and its data warehouse. Previously, the ATO announced that the second and third tenders would be announced simultaneously during the middle of this year, with RFTs likely in January 2009. |
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| Privacy Act to be Updated for the New Information Age | |
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Telstra and Optus Join List of Technology Giants at CeBIT Australia 2008
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Movers and Shakers
In this segment, we report on senior appointments and departures within ICT companies active in Australian government markets, as well as changes within government IT organisations. We focus on those people responsible for government markets – Canberra Branch Manager, Public Sector Sales Manager, etc. Read more |
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Tender Spot is a list of significant Federal and State ICT tenders currently open. Tender Spot should not be regarded as a substitute for your usual tender notification service/s eg TenderLink because it is only a weekly update.
Highlighted NEW tenders this week
NOPSA The purchase of Audio Visual Teleconferencing Equipment and Services 09-05-08
Finance Business and Specialist Adviser Panel for the Coordination of Australian Government Procurement Contracts 23-04-08
ACT Treasury Provision of IT Benchmarking Services 01-05-08
WA Health Provision of Data Centre SAN Capacity Infrastructure 23-04-08
Click the following 'read more' icon for the complete listing and full description of all tenders, including those due to close in the coming week.
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FEDERAL GOVERNMENT CONTRACTS PUBLISHED THIS WEEK Each week, Intermedium analyses all ICT contracts as reported by all federal government reporting agencies and as published in AusTender. This contracts data is built into a comprehensive series of reports. Each month, Intermedium updates the ICT procurement plans released by the federal government agencies in its scout IT spreadsheet analysis. More information. For a sample of scout IT click here.
Each week, the Medium Newsletter gives you access to all government reported contracts valued at more than $250,000 as published in AusTender for the previous week. Click to download file.
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