Screws stay on public sector

Government information technology managers met under the cloud of recession at their biennial Govis conference in Wellington to be told by Internal Affairs Minister Richard Worth to prepare for a "decade of deficits".

Line-by-line reviews of departmental expenditure had been completed, he said. The reviews have been blamed by some technology vendors for unduly holding up ICT projects.

Dr Worth said the reviews were not the state sector's only contribution to restraint, but the beginning. "This environment of restraint and prudence will last for some years, reflecting the uncertain economic times ahead. At a time of financial restraint like this, the Government's priority is to focus on the delivery of frontline services to the public."

Govis president Mike Pearson opened the conference with a sombre keynote, pointing out 200 empty seats in the Town Hall auditorium. "Those are the 30-to-40 per cent of public servants who, since 2007, no longer have the budget or the time to attend this conference."

Forty per cent of Govis' organising committee was affected by restructuring in their organisation, he said. The challenge laid down by the Government was "how to deliver better, smarter services with little more money".

Dr Worth said a survey by the State Services Commission in 2007 found two-thirds of Kiwis said that, based on their experience of accessing a government service during the previous 12 months, they were satisfied it met their expectation. Eighteen per cent disagreed. Dr Worth said that showed there was room to improve.

The commission will lose responsibility for shared government IT services when its Government Technology Services group transfers to Internal Affairs in July.

GTS general manager Stephen Crombie said a joint tender for the supply of telecommunications services delivered over the soon-to- be-scrapped Government Shared Network was progressing well. "There's a real willingness and a clear strategy to replace the GSN and we need to do it very well to provide value."

Government IT projects, both locally and internationally, had failed because of the absence of a solid strategy and effective governance, he said. "You need the right people making the right decisions at the right time."

Ensuring agencies had the appropriate expertise on board when embarking on a project was important. "Often we're just too diverse. Having domains of expertise or centres of excellence is worthwhile thinking about."

Former government chief information officer Laurence Millar spoke in his capacity as an independent consultant. The success of government IT projects should not be measured by financial metrics alone, he said.

"The GSN project set out to reduce the cost of telecommunications to government and it did that extraordinarily successfully. The trouble was, the savings weren't reflected in the cost of the project. It was losing half-a-million dollars a month but was saving much more across government. Yet, in a narrow accounting concept, it was a failure."

Politicians and public servants were often slow to grasp the potential technology - such as Web 2.0 - had to change the way citizens interacted with government.

"I don't think the majority of those in leadership in government understand what's happening. They're just starting to get to grips with information management at the same time as it's all changing again."

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