The Federal Government has a new department and the Australian Government Information Management Office (AGIMO) will answer to a new minister following the Prime Minister’s reshuffle of portfolios after several prominent members resigned from her ministry last week.
Current Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus will also become Special Minister of State (SMOS), with responsibility for AGIMO, as former SMOS Gary Gray takes on the resources, tourism and small business portfolios. Jan McLucas has become the Minister for Human Services, and a new Department of Industry, Innovation, Climate Change, Science, Research and Tertiary Education has been created from the merger of the Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency with the Department of Industry, Innovation, Science, Research and Tertiary Education.
To see the rest of the reshuffled arrangements, see the Prime Minister’s website.
The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) has selected Fujitsu to provide it with a “comprehensive system for issuing Australian passports” to replace the Department’s current ageing technology, which is expected to reach the end of its life by 2015. DFAT received $100.8 million for the replacement in the 2010-11 Federal Budget.
The first published supplier list for the NSW ICT Services Scheme includes 284 vendors, 244 of which are small and medium enterprises, says NSW Finance and Services Minister Greg Pearce. Another 104 suppliers are currently in the application assessment stage and another 500+ are finalising their applications online.
SA Health’s Enterprise Patient Administration System (EPAS), which was due to go live at the beginning of March, has been delayed as a result of problems with the billing system reports the Sydney Morning Herald. The system is part of a $408 million upgrade of SA Health systems, and is comprised of clinical, patient administration and billing modules.
The Queensland Audit Office has found that many Queensland departments failed to meet the Government’s target of having 50 per cent of services available online by 2012. On a positive note, the Office’s report into online service delivery also found that the Office of State Revenue and the Department of Tourism, Major Events, Small Business and the Commonwealth Games (DTESB) have saved a combined total of $1.1 million by closing counter services and shifting to online delivery platforms.
A Strategic Technology and Planning Command has been established within the NSW Police Force to support and coordinate the development of new technologies. Forming part of the Command is a new Innovations Board responsible for funding ICT trials. The Board has already approved a trial of mobile devices for police officers and prosecutors.
The NSW Government has undertaken a significant expansion of its One Gov government licensing services suite, according to Greg Pearce. Under the program, nearly 40 obsolete legacy systems have been replaced with One Gov.
Both of the data centres currently being built by Metronode for the use of the NSW Government, in Western Sydney and the Illawarra, have received Tier III certification from the Uptime Institute.
The South Australian Government has launched its My Invoicewebsite. The website enables small business to track the progress of payment from the Government, and publishes the Government’s monthly payment performance reports.
Dimension Data and EMC Global Holdings have been added to the Department of Finance and Deregulation’s Information and Communications Technology Commercial Off the Shelf Software and Hardware panel.
The Bureau of Meteorology has signed a $2.4 million contract for internet hosting services through the whole-of-government Internet Based Network Connections (IBNC) panel. The contract, with AAPT, is due to expire in June 2015.
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