New Australian Government Accounting System

The significance of Operation Sunlight for ICT became clearer later in the briefing. This will require a replacement for the Australian Government central accounting system, called the Central Budget Management System (CBMS). This will not be up to the phase of actually considering calling for tenders until some time next year. The data which agencies will need to supply to the system is not likely to change significantly. It was emphasised that this is not a project driven by a fixed deadline.

There are no changes planned to the way the information from the system is presented publicly. The same sort o reports will be issued on paper and on the web. This is unfortunate as the materials produced now are readily available via the web but not very easy to read. I suggest the Australian Government should take the opportunity to make the reports more user friendly online. Currently the budget web site scores 64/100 on a W3C Mobile OK test. I suggeste the Government aim for 80%.