We are creating some awesome events for you. Kindly bear with us.

Australian Government IT contracts capped at maximum value of AU$100 million or duration of three years

Australian Government IT contracts capped at maximum value of AU$100 million or duration of three years

Photo credit: Assistant Minister Taylor’s Twitter page

The Australian government announced significant reforms to the way businesses can sell IT services to Government. From today onwards, Government IT contracts will be capped at a maximum value of AU$100 million or three years’ duration. This is to allow small and medium sized businesses the opportunity to bid for smaller components of larger projects.

The government is aiming to inject an additional AU$650 million annually into small Australian tech companies, through an increase of 10% of its annual AU$6.5 billion IT spend to smaller operators.

Addressing an industry briefing in Canberra, Assistant Minister for Cities and Digital Transformation, Angus Taylor, said, “These are exciting changes that will throw open the door for SMEs and allow government agencies to bring in new and innovative services.”

“A cap is now in place to limit the term and value of government IT contracts. We are reducing the number of IT panels to make it easier for small players to supply services. We are actively encouraging small innovators to sell us their ideas,” Assistant Minister Taylor added.

Last year, the DTA had set up the Digital Marketplace to level the playing field for small and medium Australian businesses looking to do business with government. The initiative currently connects more than 65o buyers and over 500 registered sellers. 

ICT Procurement Taskforce recommendations

The reforms announced today are based on recommendations from the ICT Procurement Taskforce report.

The ICT procurement taskforce was established within the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet in October 2016 and became the responsibility of the Digital Transformation Agency (DTA) in February 2017. (A new investment management office was set up within the DTA to provide a comprehensive picture of the government’s ICT and digital technology investments  and a review was announced of all significant government technology projects, including all active projects over AU$10 million in value or those that engage a large number of Australians.)

The Taskforce found a culture of risk aversion, with a focus on compliance, a fear of failure, poor collaboration and industry engagement, had undermined the freedom to innovate and experiment. The report highlights the lack of centralised policies, coordination, reporting, oversight and accountability arising from more than 20 years of devolved agency decision-making as a significant impediment to improving ICT procurement across government.  DTA CEO, Gavin Slater had spoken about a lack of willingness on part of the government to move away from large entrenched supplier relationships and giving a chance to a small suppliers due to the perceived delivery risk in recently.

Improvements are also hindered by practices that do not reflect contemporary procurement best practice or support innovative technology choices, with existing systems firmly rooted in the bespoke and waterfall models of the past, and not the agile, consumer technology models of the present.

“If we are to reward the entrepreneurial spirit, a new procurement culture is necessary,” Assistant Minister Taylor said.

The Taskforce report goes on to make 10 recommendations. The first recommendation is to adopt a framework for ICT procurement that includes ICT procurement policy principles to guide decision-making.

The report says that ICT procurement in the Australian Government will:

  • encourage competition
  • be innovative – iterate often – fail fast
  • be structured in a way that enables SMEs to compete fairly to directly provide components of significant ICT projects
  • be outcomes focused
  • use open standards and ‘cloud first’ approaches
  • minimise cyber security risks
  • not duplicate the building of platforms that have been built by other agencies.

Other recommendations include establishing a comprehensive dataset of government ICT spend for greater analysis at a portfolio and project level, including forward projections of ICT investment levels and developing a public dashboard of significant ICT projects and spending.

The report also talks about developing ICT-specific procurement principles, building strategic partnerships, enhancing the Australian Public Service’s procurement skills, and developing new ICT procurement pathways for catalogue-based e-procurements and innovative and small-scale experimentation procurements.

It also recommends setting annual targets for ICT procurement (such as an annual, whole-of-government cap on internal and external ICT spending and maximum contract amounts and lengths for all ICT procurement).

All of the recommendations have been accepted by the government. Work will continue over the next 12 months to deliver more pathways to improve coordination and reduce duplication of ICT procurement across government. The DTA’s increased oversight of the government’s IT investment portfolio and its work to build digital capability will address the calls for a more strategic IT procurement approach and a stronger technical workforce.

PARTNER

Qlik’s vision is a data-literate world, where everyone can use data and analytics to improve decision-making and solve their most challenging problems. A private company, Qlik offers real-time data integration and analytics solutions, powered by Qlik Cloud, to close the gaps between data, insights and action. By transforming data into Active Intelligence, businesses can drive better decisions, improve revenue and profitability, and optimize customer relationships. Qlik serves more than 38,000 active customers in over 100 countries.

PARTNER

CTC Global Singapore, a premier end-to-end IT solutions provider, is a fully owned subsidiary of ITOCHU Techno-Solutions Corporation (CTC) and ITOCHU Corporation.

Since 1972, CTC has established itself as one of the country’s top IT solutions providers. With 50 years of experience, headed by an experienced management team and staffed by over 200 qualified IT professionals, we support organizations with integrated IT solutions expertise in Autonomous IT, Cyber Security, Digital Transformation, Enterprise Cloud Infrastructure, Workplace Modernization and Professional Services.

Well-known for our strengths in system integration and consultation, CTC Global proves to be the preferred IT outsourcing destination for organizations all over Singapore today.

PARTNER

Planview has one mission: to build the future of connected work. Our solutions enable organizations to connect the business from ideas to impact, empowering companies to accelerate the achievement of what matters most. Planview’s full spectrum of Portfolio Management and Work Management solutions creates an organizational focus on the strategic outcomes that matter and empowers teams to deliver their best work, no matter how they work. The comprehensive Planview platform and enterprise success model enables customers to deliver innovative, competitive products, services, and customer experiences. Headquartered in Austin, Texas, with locations around the world, Planview has more than 1,300 employees supporting 4,500 customers and 2.6 million users worldwide. For more information, visit www.planview.com.

SUPPORTING ORGANISATION

SIRIM is a premier industrial research and technology organisation in Malaysia, wholly-owned by the Minister​ of Finance Incorporated. With over forty years of experience and expertise, SIRIM is mandated as the machinery for research and technology development, and the national champion of quality. SIRIM has always played a major role in the development of the country’s private sector. By tapping into our expertise and knowledge base, we focus on developing new technologies and improvements in the manufacturing, technology and services sectors. We nurture Small Medium Enterprises (SME) growth with solutions for technology penetration and upgrading, making it an ideal technology partner for SMEs.

PARTNER

HashiCorp provides infrastructure automation software for multi-cloud environments, enabling enterprises to unlock a common cloud operating model to provision, secure, connect, and run any application on any infrastructure. HashiCorp tools allow organizations to deliver applications faster by helping enterprises transition from manual processes and ITIL practices to self-service automation and DevOps practices. 

PARTNER

IBM is a leading global hybrid cloud and AI, and business services provider. We help clients in more than 175 countries capitalize on insights from their data, streamline business processes, reduce costs and gain the competitive edge in their industries. Nearly 3,000 government and corporate entities in critical infrastructure areas such as financial services, telecommunications and healthcare rely on IBM’s hybrid cloud platform and Red Hat OpenShift to affect their digital transformations quickly, efficiently and securely. IBM’s breakthrough innovations in AI, quantum computing, industry-specific cloud solutions and business services deliver open and flexible options to our clients. All of this is backed by IBM’s legendary commitment to trust, transparency, responsibility, inclusivity and service.

Send this to a friend