Top 10 events that shaped government ICT in 2013

1. Change of Government

The change of government in September 2013 and the following Machinery of Government changes had significant implications for ICT and staff across the Federal government. We tracked how major changes and announcements would affect significant projects and ICT environments.

2. ICT emerges as a solution for Budget and staff cuts

2013 saw an increased focus on ICT in the public sector to enable continued service delivery in the face of staff cuts and tightening fiscal environments.

3. States establish 'continuously open' ICT panels

The year saw a concerted move away from traditional IT services panels with NSW, Queensland and Victoria all launching ‘continuously open’ arrangements that allow for the ongoing addition of new suppliers and have indefinite panel terms.

4. Major ICT strategies reveal common agenda

New ICT strategies in Victoria, Queensland, South Australia and NSW revealed a number of trends across Australian state governments, including preferences for cloud solutions, open data and share-before-build approaches to ICT.

5. A cloudy year in government ICT

It was a big year for cloud, with the release of the NSW Cloud Policy, a number of approaches to market across the country for cloud-related services, and a positive end-of-year report card for the Federal Government’s cloud panel.

6. Problems with the cloud begin to emerge

However, not everything was smooth sailing on the cloud front, and growing adoption of cloud solutions meant that 2013 also became the year when issues with the technology began to emerge.

7. 2013-14 budgets short on ICT

The ICT sector was short-changed in a number of jurisdictions, with Intermedium’s budget coverage revealing that Federal, Queensland and South Australia all handed down tight-fisted 2013-14 budgets.

8. Central shared services out of vogue

The move away from central shared services grew more pronounced with decisions to change the nature of CenITex in Victoria from a provider of ICT shared services to a broker of market-provided services. The Queensland Government indicated its intentions to divest ICT infrastructure provider CITEC and open the services currently provided by Queensland Shared Services to the market. The Western Australian Government continued with the full decommissioning of its central shared services office.

9. Public sector CIOs class of 2013

The CIO revolving door continued turning in 2013, with a number of public sector CIO changes. Intermedium also brought you nine new in-depth CIO interviews as part of our Get to know the CIO series, where we discuss everything from major agency projects to cloud computing and outsourcing policies.

10. Major ICT tenders and contracts of the year

There were a number of major Approaches to the Market and in some instances were seen through to conclusion in high-value ICT contracts that were signed during the year.

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