Lack of transparency impeding government data centre consolidation

In response to my request for input on "Training Green Technologists" Bernard Robertson-Dunn commented that "A more advanced, comprehensive and effective approach is contained in the whole of government data centre strategy that was presented to government at the end of last year." This appears to be a reference to the strategy for the Australian (Federal) Government, developed in response to the Gershon Report.

As a result I have added an extra slide to my presentation:

Good Business is Green

• ... economies of scale through consolidation of small data centres to a shared facility ...
• ... consolidation to shared infrastructure, such as servers, storage and networks ...

From: Data Centres Policy, Queensland Department of Public Works, December 2009 v1.0.0

The key to green data centres, and green ICT in general, is not sophisticated energy saving technology, but policies for efficient use of resources. To use energy and materials efficiently and thus be green, data centres need sufficient economies of scale. This is noted in the Queensland Government's Data Centres Policy. The Australian Government has a similar strategy prepared by AGIMO, in response to the Gershon Report, but which has not been publicly released.

The Australian Government is not alone in this approach of a lack of transparency to ICT policy, the Queensland Government Data Centre Strategy is not made publicly available, although the QGEA Policy statement appears to contain the essence of the policy. The policy says that agencies in South East Queensland must use the two government data centres. Agencies must consider using the shared equipment and networks of the centres, but are not required to do so.

It is unfortunate these government data centres strategies are not made public. Apart from the loss of this government funded advice to the private sector, most people engaged in ICT development in government agencies will not have access to the advice. This will result in a poorer policy and less effective implementation. The Australian and Queensland governments should release their reports.

Policy statement

The Queensland Government and its agencies will adopt a whole-of-Government approach to data centres as outlined in the Queensland Government Data Centre Strategy.

Policy benefits

This policy will assist government to move towards becoming a single enterprise, reduce risk and improve value for money through:

• the provision of resilient fit for purpose data centre accommodation for the Government’s ICT systems
• economies of scale through consolidation of small data centres to a shared facility
• increased security through the provision of appropriate physical security, 24 hour surveillance and monitoring and auditable access control
• certainty of costs for budgeting for ICT initiatives
• less project risk for agency initiatives as the need for data centre “design, build and operate” tasks is removed
• facilitates other ICT consolidation to shared infrastructure, such as servers, storage and networks
• potential cost savings through re-assignment of computer room space to in-demand office accommodation in the Brisbane CBD.

Policy requirements

Policy requirement 1: Use of government data centres

Agencies must use the two government data centres currently located at 317 Edward Street and/or Springfield (Polaris), unless otherwise approved by the Peer Review Panel, to ensure the implementation of the whole-of-Government Data Centre Strategy and consolidation of data centre requirements across the Queensland Government.

Policy requirement 2: Use of whole-of-government solutions

Migration of agency ICT equipment to the Queensland Government data centres must include consideration for the use of whole-of-Government solutions for networks, infrastructure and enterprise management as part of the migration strategy. ...

From: Queesnland Government Enterprise Architecture Data Centres Policy, Queensland Department of Public Works, December 2009 v1.0.0

E-documents can make government offices smaller

Media reports indicate that the Finance Minister, Lindsay Tanner has said that new federal government offices will be reduced from around 25 square metres per person to 16 square metres. In January I suggested that as most paper is replaced with computer storage in new offices and the computer storage is located off site, the size of offices should be able to be reduced down to 8 m² per person. The m² allocation for Australian Government offices therefore look generous.

The UK Government report "Improving the efficiency of central government's office property" (28 November 2007) proposed 12 m² per person. It should be noted that this is not the actual space each office worker gets, but is calculated from the Net Internal Area (the area within a building measured to the internal surface of the perimeter walls at each floor level), not just the floor space of individual offices. For comparison, The Pentagon was designed for 11.6 m² per person.

Australian Government Agencies doing okay with Green ICT

The "Green ICT: The State of the Nation" report, released by Fujitsu yesterday, has noted positive results for Australian federal government agencies implementation of sustainability measures to reduce carbon emissions from computers. This was reported by Alison O'Flynn, Head of Sustainability at Fujitsu speaking here at the Sustainability Plus Technology Forum in Sydney this morning. One reason given for the agencies doing well is the effect of the Gershon Report.

The research the report is based on was done in conjunction with Connection Research, in association with the World Wildlife Fund. It follows an earlier report on private sector green ICT strategies which was far less positive: GREEN IT: The Convenient Truth.

Unfortunately, Fujitsu have produced their reports as a large (5.4Mbyte) hard to read and hard to get PDF file. Fujitsu should consider providing their report as a set of small, easy to read, mobile compatible web pages. This would reduce the carbon emissions cause by the report by at least 90%. For those who do not want to cause excessive greenhouse gas emissions which downloading the full report would cause, here is an excerpt:

The idea of intergenerational responsibility and balancing the three elements of sustainability (economic, social and environmental) present both challenges and opportunities for the way we live today. With rapid population growth and the
increasing impact of climate change, we need to act now.

Greenhouse gas emissions from the ICT sector as a proportion of global total emissions are forecast to increase from 2% in 2009 to 6% by 2020. Over the
same period the number of personal computers is expected to more than treble, from 1.2 billion to 4 billion. The ICT industry has an important leadership role to play - both in mitigating its own impacts and in exploiting its technology to enable emissions reductions in many other industries and business processes.

The Gershon Report recommended the Australian Government develop a Whole of Government Sustainability ICT Plan1 to manage and reduce the environmental impact of the government’s ICT activities. This plan, developed by the Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts (DEWHA) in conjunction with the Department of Finance and Deregulation, is effective from early
2010.

In late 2008 Fujitsu Australia conducted research to understand how ICT departments in the Australian private sector were responding to the emerging carbon priced economy. Fujitsu Australia published these findings in a report titled Green IT: The
Convenient Truth 2.

In September 2009 Fujitsu Australia commissioned further research to understand how Australian Government agencies are preparing for the emerging sustainable ICT aspirations and goals being set by the Australian Government.

The research found that Australian Government ICT managers are personally more concerned about climate change than the Australian population generally, and also more concerned than ICT managers in other sectors. In fact, the survey
identified no climate change deniers at all. This may be because of an increased awareness of the issues raised in the Gershon report and the subsequent high profile of sustainability in government generally.

The research clearly shows that Australian Government ICT managers have done far more in the measurement of ICTs power consumption, and in ensuring accountability for Green ICT, than their counterparts in the private sector.

This would indicate Australian Government ICT managers are demonstrating Green ICT leadership, both as a result of their agencies’ overall commitment to a green strategy and because of their awareness of the ICTs important role in reducing overall carbon emissions. ...

From: Green ICT: The State of the Nation, A Report on How Australian Government Agencies are Responding to the Transition to a Low Carbon Economy, Fujitsu, 29 September 2009

Australian Government Green ICT Quick Wins

Greetings from the AIIA "Canberra: The Standing Agenda" in Canberra. Kayelle Wiltshire from AGIMO is talking about 'Green ICT Quick Wins'. She pointed out that the ANAO estimate of 10% of energy use in agencies is probably low. The quick wins are easy steps to reduce energy use, such as shutting down desktop computers overnight (As at March 2009, only 48% of agencies do). In the longer term agencies can look at thin clients and virtualisation (as ABS has done). Agencies get to keep the money saved.

Later Mr Al Blake, CIO of the Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts (DEWHA) is talking on the whole of Government ICT sustainability plan in response to the Gershon recommendations. DEWHA are to produce whole of government ICT plan by December 2009 and major agencies are required to each produce their own ICT Energy Management Plan by March 2010. DEWHA have already issued a Request for Tender for Provision of Desktop, LAN, Helpdesk and Midrange Services.

A problem with both the 'Green ICT Quick Wins' and the Whole of Government ICT plan is that there appear to be no details published. As a result it will be difficult for government agencies and their commercial suppliers to assist with the effort. AGIMO and DEWHA should publish the planning documents and drafts for the projects on the web, so that there can be informed input. In this way it will not be necessary to wait until the plans are completed before work on their implementation. It will be possible to gain wide input from government staff and industry informally. A more formal parallel process can make use of AGIMO's GovDex online system, without the need for any committee meetings. AGIMO could thereby demonstrate how to move the process of government to 21st century web 2.0 organisational techniques.

Australian Government ICT Sustainability Plans

The Australian Information Industry Association's "Canberra: The Standing Agenda" monthly drinks are on in Canberra today at 4:30pm. This month it features Ms Kayelle Wiltshire, Branch Manager, Central Facilities, AGIMO on 'Green ICT Quick Wins' and Mr Al Blake, Assistant Secretary and CIO of the Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts (DEWHA) on the whole of Government ICT sustainability plan iin response to the Gershon recommendations.

Sponsoring the event is AH Technology featuring 1E WakeUp, NightWatchman and Power & Patch Management Pack. The products are used by Dell and the UK civil service. The products are also being used at the Eden Project (which I visited in Cornwall).

Government ICT Reform Program

Greetings from "Walking the Walk - the governance and progress of the Government's ICT Reform Program" by John Sheridan, Australian Government Information Management Office at the joint ACS/AIPM meeting in Canberra.

John is discussing the implementation of the Gershon Recommendations. He mentioned the Portfolio, Programme, and Project Management Maturity Model (P3M3) tool would be used. I got a laugh when John said it could be found online in thirty seconds after I found the link I shouted out "got it!". P3M3 has five maturity levels, conceptually similar to CMM.

John commented that IT budgets in industry are expected to be flat, during to the global financial crisis and government IT people could not expect any better than this. Part of the savings which the government is requiring from agencies on ICT will be available for new initiatives which agencies bid for. I am not entirely convinced that this approach makes sense. ICT on its own does not do anything for an organisation, it is only there to help carry out functions. Therefore the ICT budget should reflect what the agency does and how ICT can be used there. If ICT can be used, then the ICT budget should be larger, otherwise lower.

In an extreme example of what not to do, one public sector organisation I visited recently had a financial shortfall. The organisation has a very efficient innovative ICT system, but they also has a surplus of staff. As they agency could not get rid of the staff quickly, they decided to instead turn off the efficient ICT system and use manual processing. This provided the clients with a poorer quality of service and cost more, but it provided the required modest budget reduction.

However, if not taken to extremes, the practical benchmarks John talked about can be usable. One example was the ratio of full time staff (equivalent) to printers. This is a quick indicator of what agencies are doing.

In the case of industry interaction, AGIMO will make use of a similar approach to Intellect, the UK IT industry body. Green ICT will also be addresses, hopefully by the public service staff and contractors enrolling in my Green ICT Course. ;-)

While the ICT Reform Program will provide modest improvements , it will not deliver the improved services and cost savings which are feasable by effective use of ICT for Australian Public Service and their clients, the Australian public. AGIMO should plan to build a Government 2.0 system.

The separate islands of ICT in the various government agencies need to be joined, with a government mashup. That a particular agency has an efficient internal system will be of little value if it is only available in that agency. Services need to be avialable across the public service and accessible to the public. There is little sense in making the tiny isolated email and electronic document archives of each agency more efficient. There is also little point in giving public servnats better desktop PCs which keep them isolated in their offices, separated from their collogues and clients.

The Gershon recommendations are focused inwards on the ICT operations of government. The reforms are about making ICT as it is done in agencies more efficient, rather than providing the service in new and better ways. As an example, there is the assumption that each agency needs to provide its own independent ICT service and that this is about computers on desktops connected to servers. This is not the way ICT need be done, nor necessarily the best, or most cost effective.

One important part of the service the Australian Government now supplies are web based services. To the general public, who the public service serves, the divisions between agencies are artificial and arbitrary. There is no good reason why each agency should have its own web site served from a separate web server, with a different design and set of staff servicing it. A better cheaper services would be provided by an integrated approach.

Similarly, most of the ICT services used by public servants in agencies are the same across the public service. There is no good reason why these services are duplicated in each agency. Apart from the cost of this duplication it creates unnecessary costs in retraining and coordination. All agencies could use, for example, one email system and one electronic document management system which automatically permanently archived all electronic documents.

Much of Australia's federal political leadership has spent the last few days in a controversy over a fake email message. This indicates a failure of the Australian Public Service to properly implement and operate their records management system. If the system was working correctly, it should have taken only a few minutes to find if the email message in question was genuine or not, by checking the archive. This is not just a matter of administrative efficiently, as there are laws which require records to be kept and criminal penalties for not doing so.

There is no good reason why most public servants should be tied to desks. They can be provided with mobile services to do the work at their client's location. Some of these clients are the public, some are MPs and others are other public servants. Services which can be provided over a secure Internet connection and to a mobile device would allow for a better service.

The current Gershon reforms remind me of decades ago when IBM was proposing standardised terminal interfaces for mainframe computers. This was a very well thought out initiative, which I supported. However, it was overtaken by the rise of the PC and became irrelevant. As PCs are now declining in importance, with mobile web based applications and cloud computing. By the time the Gershon reforms are implemented, the ICT systems they are designed for will be obsolete.

John Sheridan, Division Manager Business Improvement Division at AGIMO in the Department of Finance and Deregulation, will provide an outline of the progress of the Government's ICT Reform program which is implementing the recommendations of Sir Peter Gershon's Review of the Australian Government's Use of Information and Communication Technology. Mr Sheridan will describe the structure of the program, outline the projects involved, and summarise results to date. He will provide details of the risk management approach inherent in the new processes for Agency Capability Assessment and discuss the management and progress of the ICT Business as Usual budget reduction project and the companion reinvestment pool.

Biography:

Mr John Sheridan

John Sheridan joined the Australian Public Service in 1999, after 22 years in the Australian Army. He was the Defence IT architect from 2002 until 2007. From April 2007 until July 2008, he led Information Systems Division and was responsible for the design and development of Defence’s IT systems. In August 2008, John joined the Australian Government Information Management Office to negotiate the whole of government Microsoft Volume Sourcing Agreement. Since January 2009, John has led Business Improvement Division. He is responsible for ICT business as usual budget reductions across government. He graduated first in his class from both the Officer Cadet School, Portsea in 1980 and the Australian Army Command and Staff College in 1994. He has a BA(Hons.) degree, Graduate Diplomas in Computing Studies and Management Studies, and a Master of Defence Studies.
From: Walking the Walk - the governance and progress of the Government's ICT Reform Program, ACS, 2009

Australian Government ICT Reform Program

John Sheridan, Division Manager Business Improvement Division at AGIMO in the Department of Finance and Deregulation, will outline progress of the Australian Government ICT Reform program at an ACS meeting in Canberra 24 June. AGIMO is implementing the recommendations of Sir Peter Gershon's Review of the Australian Government's Use of Information and Communication Technology. Mr Sheridan will describe the structure of the program, outline the projects involved, and summarise results to date. He will provide details of the risk management approach inherent in the new processes for Agency Capability Assessment and discuss the management and progress of the ICT Business as Usual budget reduction project and the companion reinvestment pool.

Australian Government Rostering System Tender

The Australian Government's Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry has issued a Request for Tender for a Staff Timesheet Rostering and Allocation Information Technology System (DAFF 151/08 24-Oct-2008). This should be expanded to provide a government wide, wenb based service, in line with the with the recommendations of the Gershon Report on Australian Government ICT.

The tender documents include a very comprehensive 67 page "Statement of Requirements - Business Requirements". There is also a ten page document on the technical details of the AQIS data network. The data network details are interesting in that it includes mobile connections via the public Internet and mobile phones. It is likely that tenderers will offer web based systems in response.

As with the multiple e-recruitment system tenders, it seems likely that there are other Australian Government agencies with essentially the same requirements. The government should therefore expand this tender to meet other agencies requirements. Apart from lowering costs and increasing the flexibility of the system it would also reduce the energy use and greenhouse gas emissions of the system. This would fit with the recommendations of the Gershon Report on Australian Government ICT.

Sustainability of Australian Government ICT

The Review of the Australian Government's Use of Information and Communication Technology includes a recommendation on Sustainability of ICT. This proposes a whole-of-government ICT sustainability plan to manage the Government ICT carbon footprint. This is consistent with the Personal Computer and Monitors Energy Efficiency Strategy, recommending mandatory energy standard for government procurement, energy targets for agencies, reporting and activating power saving features in PCs.

5.7 Recommendation 7 – Sustainability of ICT

5.7.1 Develop a whole-of-government ICT sustainability plan (in conjunction with DEWHA) to manage the carbon footprint of the Government’s ICT activities

To better align the Government’s overall sustainability agenda and its ability to understand its energy costs and the footprint of its ICT estate, I recommend the development of an ICT sustainability plan.

The ICT sustainability plan should:

• identify which of the available standards (for example, EPEAT™) should be adopted as mandatory for relevant ICT acquisitions (the requirement to purchase green ICT equipment should be incorporated into the client code of conduct as detailed under Recommendation 5.6.2)
• include a whole-of-government ICT energy target, with agencies to report their progress towards the target
• take into account potential implications of a carbon pollution reduction scheme.

I also recommend that large agencies (with ICT spends in excess of $20 million) develop an ICT energy efficiency plan that can be either part of a wider agency energy efficiency plan, or freestanding. As a priority, agencies should measure their data centre energy efficiency (which may require the installation of electricity meters in some instances). Agencies should also include in their plan a target energy usage, including the power usage effectiveness³² of their data centres.

Larger agencies will need to undertake a periodic independent ICT energy assessment. Subject to agreement by the Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts (DEWHA), agency plans will also be independently assessed by DEWHA, with results of the assessment reported to the Ministers for Finance and Deregulation, and Resources and Energy. Reporting of progress against the plan, should be in a way that is consistent with other reporting requirements such as the National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting Framework.

When procuring new ICT products and services, it is important that agencies consider their impact on the environment. AGIMO, in conjunction with DEWHA, should develop a green ICT procurement kit to support agencies regarding environmental issues in relation to ICT products and services. This should include raw material acquisition, manufacture, distribution, use and disposal.

5.7.2 Identify green ICT quick wins

In the interim, AGIMO should identify a possible list of quick wins in this area, such as software controlled automatic turn-off of PCs, based on the best practices already adopted by some agencies and in the private sector.

From: Sustainability of ICT, Recommendations from the Review of the Australian Government's Use of ICT, Sir Peter Gershon, 28 August 2008 (released by Minister Tanner 16 October 2008)

Gershon Report on Australian Government ICT

The Review of the Australian Government's Use of Information and Communication Technology by Sir Peter Gershon, was released by the Minister for Finance on 16 October 2008. This provides a snapshot of the current state of ICT in the Australian Government. Sir Peter comments that agency autonomy the "model of weak governance of ICT at a whole-of-government level" is sub-optimal. He argues for sustained leadership by top officials and Ministers and resources for change, and skilled staff. The report presents a powerful argument clearly, but is overly optimistic as to how quickly changes can be made.

Will the Ministers Listen?

My experience of being a senior ICT policy maker in government nine years ago was that such skills were not highly valued by the senior executive of the Australian Public Service nor the ministers. This was more a failing of ICT professionals to present their capabilities in a way that non-technical clients could understand, than a failure of the leadership. Advances have been made since then, with Australia leading the world in writing a standard for Governance ICT which has now been adopted globally. Also ICT professionals are being better trained in communication and business skills. My colleagues in the Australian Computer Society and the Australian National Unviersity have been contributing to that effort with training for new and current ICT professionals.

Sustainable ICT Planning

The report recommends development of a whole-of-government ICT sustainability plan, in conjunction with the Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts (DEWHA), to manage the energy costs and carbon footprint of the Government’s ICT activities. This is a recommendation I made while preparing the Personal Computer and Monitors Energy Efficiency Strategy for DEWHA. Ideally, a sustainability plan can be integrated with the reports other recommendations for a whole-of-government approach to data centres, governance, spending and skills, so that environmental improvements can be combined with cost savings.

Recommendations such as a 50% reduction in contractors in 2 years will be difficult to achieve. Restoring the whole-of-government ICT career structure, which was dismantled with outsourcing, will take time. A whole-of-government strategic ICT workforce plan should be made easier by recent developments in technology and training, with better standards making skills portability more feasable.

50% Saving by Finance Possible in Formatting of the report

The Executive Summary and each chapter of the report has been provided as a separate web page, as well as the full text in one 3Mbyte PDF document. Providing the report sections as web pages greatly improves access and the Minister's staff are to be commended for this. Frequently such government reports are only made available as one large lump of hard to read PDF. The report is overall well formatted and could be displayed on a mobile web browser of a smart phone, as well as a desktop screen. There was one validation error found. An automated accessibility test reported a number of minor accessibility problems: one Level-A, 3 Double A and one Triple A, which could be easily corrected.

However, there is one major flaw in the design of the department of finance web site, with all web pages having an excessively large side menu. The executive summary of the Gershon report is 95 Kbytes of HTML. Of this only 22 Kbytes is the text of the report, with 78% of the file taken up with the Finance menu. This menu appears to occur in all web pages on the Finance department web site and will be causing an excessive load on the system. Also the image in the document has been incorrectly coded as a JPEG image. So the Finance Department could commence implementation of the Gershon reforms with an optimisation of the design of its own web site. A simple redesign would reduce the size of the documents by 50% and thus make a 50% saving in the size of the web server and telecommunications required. Details of how to do this are in my course on web design at the ANU.

Table of Contents

• Glossary of abbreviations
• Executive Summary
  • Introduction /Context
  • Methodology
  • Key Findings
  • Summary of key recommendations
  • Implementation
  • Acknowledgements
• Introduction

1. Chapter 1: Views from within the Australian Government
   1. ICT Investment Decision Making
   2. Project delivery
   3. Organisational capability
   4. People
   5. Managing ICT spend
   6. Procurement and ICT Outsourcing
   7. Use of best practice
   8. Views on existing whole-of-government arrangements
   9. Views on data centres
   10. Views on the ICT industry
   11. ICT arrangements in Ministerial Offices
2. Chapter 2: Views from outside the Australian Government
   1. Better utilisation of ICT assets
   2. Shared services
   3. Standardised/coordinated approach to procurement
   4. Use of Commercial Off-the-shelf Solutions
   5. Need for standardisation
   6. Whole-of-government governance
   7. High costs of tendering
   8. The Australian government compared to other governments
   9. Skills shortage
   10. Green ICT
   11. Security Clearances
   12. Best practices
3. Chapter 3: Summary of survey findings
   1. Survey approach
   2. Survey Results
4. Chapter 4: Key findings
   1. Weak governance of pan-government issues related to ICT
   2. Agency governance mechanisms are weak in respect of focus on ICT efficiency and understanding of organisational capability to commission, manage and realise benefits from ICT-enabled projects
   3. The business as usual ICT funding in agencies is not subject to sufficient challenge and scrutiny
   4. Disconnect between the stated importance of ICT and actions in relation to ICT skills
   5. There is no whole-of-government strategic plan for data centres. In the absence of such a plan, the government will be forced into a series of ad hoc investments which will, in total, cost significantly more than a coordinated approach
   6. The Government ICT marketplace is neither efficient nor effective
   7. There is a significant disconnect between the Government’s overall sustainability agenda and its ability to understand and manage energy costs and the carbon footprint of its ICT estate
5. Chapter 5: Recommendations
   1. Recommendation 1 – Strengthen pan-government governance
   2. Recommendation 2 – Strengthen Agency Governance
   3. Recommendation 3 – Tighten the management of ICT business as usual funding
   4. Recommendation 4 – Enhance the management of the APS ICT skills base
   5. Recommendation 5 – Data Centres
   6. Recommendation 6 – Improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the ICT marketplace
   7. Recommendation 7 – Sustainability of ICT
6. Chapter 6: Implementation
7. Appendices
   1. Terms of Reference
   2. Submission questions
   3. Survey instrument
   4. Submissions received
   5. Consultations
   6. Agencies with ICT Spend over $20 million in 2007–08
   7. Agencies with ICT Spend $2 million to $20 million in 2007–08
   8. Candidates for whole-of government approaches
   9. Proposed criteria for whole-of-government approaches and arrangements subject to opt-out
   10. Proposed role of AGIMO
   11. Linkage between Terms of Reference and Recommendations
   12. Details of ICT Review Team

From: Review of the Australian Government's Use of Information and Communication Technology, Sir Peter Gershon, 28 August 2008 (released by Minister Tanner 16 October 2008)

Key Findings

After detailed analysis of the evidence, the review identified the following key findings:

1. There is weak governance¹ of pan-government issues related to ICT.
2. Agency governance mechanisms are weak in respect of their focus on ICT efficiency and an understanding of organisational capability to commission, manage and realise benefits from ICT-enabled projects.
3. The business as usual (BAU) ICT funding in agencies is not subject to sufficient challenge and scrutiny.
4. There is a disconnect between the stated importance of ICT and actions in relation to ICT skills.
5. There is no whole-of-government² strategic plan for data centres. In the absence of such a plan, the Government will be forced into a series of ad hoc investments which will, in total, cost in the order of $1 billion more than a coordinated approach over a 15-year period.
6. The government ICT marketplace is neither efficient nor effective.
7. There is a significant disconnect between the Government’s overall sustainability agenda and its ability to understand and manage energy costs and the carbon footprint of its ICT estate.

At the heart of these findings is a conclusion that the current model of very high levels of agency autonomy, including the ability to self-approve opt-ins to whole-of-government approaches in the ICT domain, leads to sub-optimal outcomes in the context of prevailing external trends, financial returns, and the aims and objectives of the current Government. The impact of this autonomy has been heightened by a previous lack of strong focus on whole-of-government ICT issues at both Ministerial and top official levels. This conclusion applies no matter how well-intentioned individual agencies are in their pursuit of whole-of-government outcomes.

The current model of operation is very close to treating FMA Act agencies as though they were independent private sector entities. The agencies are, however, very different in a number of aspects: they are funded by the taxpayer, they cannot go bankrupt, they have very little or nothing of the ‘time=money’ dynamic of the private sector, and they have no simple bottom line outcomes against which their success or failure can be measured.

Against the background of the Government’s objectives and the pressures to improve efficiency and effectiveness wherever possible, I consider some rebalancing between agency autonomy and coordination across government is both desirable and necessary in measures related to ICT. Such a move is in line with trends in the United Kingdom (UK) and United States (US) Governments, as well as large private sector organisations.

Summary of key recommendations

The following comprise the primary recommendations of this review. The complete list of my detailed recommendations is found at Chapter 5 of this report. A summary of how the recommendations meet the Terms of Reference can be found at Appendix K.

Governance

• Establish a Ministerial Committee on ICT to be responsible for the key whole-of-government ICT policies and the overall strategic vision for how ICT should support the achievement of the Government’s outcomes and wider policy agenda.
• Create a Secretaries' ICT Governance Board (SIGB) with a strong mandate from the Government to drive the agreed recommendations arising from the review and focus on addressing the key business issues to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the Government’s use of ICT.
• Allow agencies to obtain opt-outs, based on genuine business need, from agreed whole-of-government activities. Opt-outs to be approved by the Ministerial Committee, informed by the SIGB.

Capability

• Improve agency capability to commission, manage and realise the benefits from ICT-enabled projects through the implementation of a common methodology for assessing agency capability based on self-assessment and periodic independent audit. Each agency Chief Executive to propose a target level of capability based on their agency’s and the Government’s strategic priorities, and for this to be independently validated. Agencies to develop a capability improvement plan with commitment, and agreed actions, to address identified gaps.

ICT spend

• Target to move total FMA Act agency ICT spend from an average 77:23% split between ICT BAU activities and creation of new capability in 2007–08 to an average 70:30% in 2011–12.
• As initial steps towards this goal, reduce the ICT BAU budgets of the largest 28 FMA Act agencies (Defence excluded) with ICT spends in excess of $20 million per annum by 15% from 2007–08 actuals (for a list of agencies refer to Appendix F), with a phased introduction over two years.
• Create ICT Review Teams to help these agencies achieve or exceed the target reductions without impairing service delivery to citizens and business.
• In addition, I recommend targeting agencies with total annual ICT spends between $2 million and $20 million to achieve a 7.5% reduction on average of their BAU from 2007–08 actuals (for a list of agencies refer to Appendix G) , with a phased introduction over two years.
• The 15% and 7.5% reductions in total should save the Government around $140 million in the first year and in excess of $400 million in the second and subsequent years. I also recommend that 50% of the savings generated by these recommendations be transferred to a central fund for reinvestment in projects to improve efficiency and effectiveness of ICT BAU activities, such as replacement of legacy software and hardware with high support and maintenance costs.

Skills

• Create a whole-of-government Australian Public Service (APS) ICT career structure, including training and development programs for ICT professionals in key skills areas.
• Develop and maintain a whole-of-government strategic ICT workforce plan.
• Reduce the total number of ICT contractors in use across FMA Act agencies by 50% over a 2-year period and increase the number of APS ICT staff. This should save the Government an estimated $100 million (across both BAU and project-related work).

Data centres

• Develop a whole-of-government approach for future data centre requirements over the next 10–15 years.

Sustainable ICT

• Develop a whole-of-government ICT sustainability plan (in conjunction with the Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts) to manage the energy costs and carbon footprint of the Government’s ICT activities.

Implementation

My recommendations entail a major program of administrative reform and cultural change. Based on my experience of creating sustainable change in the UK public sector there are two critical requirements which will determine the success of the proposed program: first, sustained leadership and drive at Ministerial and top official levels; second, ensuring the enablers of change are properly resourced not only in funding terms but also skills of the right calibre.

The early decisions of the Ministerial Committee and the SIGB will need to send out clear signals about the pace and direction of change which is then reinforced through subsequent decisions. It will be essential to ensure that agreed whole-of-government ICT approaches and arrangements are ‘fit for purpose’. ...

From: Executive Summary, Review of the Australian Government's Use of ICT, Sir Peter Gershon, 28 August 2008 (released by Minister Tanner 16 October 2008)