IfG.CC - The Potsdam eGovernment Competence Center

Philippine government agencies are required to supply one per cent of their budgets to the E-Government Fund, which is worth around 1 PHP billion (US$22 million). “But this is not happening”, Ibrahim told a room of 130 delegates at the Pan Pacific Hotel. “Our budget should be more like PHP 12 billion (US$273 million),” he said.

The EGF, which was created to implement e-government projects and to provide financing for high priority inter-agency systems, is being used to support economic development, fight corruption, improve fiscal management, healthcare and agricultural productivity.

The move is likely to benefit small to medium IT business, who will increase their chances at gaining lucrative government contracts.

But it renews concerns about more job cuts, with unions previously warning up to 2000 government IT jobs could be axed.

Information Technology Minister Ian Walker on Friday tabled in State Parliament a $5.2 million audit of the government's ICT sector and confirmed he had accepted almost all of the report's 60 recommendations.

Among them include shifting to a cloud based email system to save $17 million and cancelling fixed-line and mobile phone services to save up to $9 million.

The news comes in the wake of the Costello Commission of Audit into the state's finances, which recommends the government look to outsourcing and asset sales to balance its books.

Victorian ICT shared services agency CenITex will begin outsourcing key services “in a couple of weeks”, as it seeks to turn itself from an owner and provider to a broker of IT services.

In an emailed statement, chief executive Michael Vanderheide confirmed the plan to transform CenITex was in the process of being implemented.

“This overall program of work will result in a fundamental redesign of CenITex,” he said.

The Sunday Times revealed three weeks ago that 12 to 14 Indian workers had been subcontracted to audit leave balances for the soon-to-be de-commissioned Office of Shared Services, a unit providing human resources and financial expertise to government agencies.

The Department of Finance advised the Community and Public Sector Union (CPSU) of the decision not to renew the Agile Logic contract on Tuesday.

The Department of Health and Ageing has gone to tender for an organisation to support the operation of the Personally-Controlled E-Health Record (PCEHR) system.

The Federal Government's e-health record system was launched on 1 July after two years of planning and hundreds of billions of dollars worth of investment. Although it hasn't been a smooth start for the program, over 3500 people have so far registered for their own e-health record.

Deutsche Unternehmen und Behörden lagern ihre IT seltener aus als der europäische Durchschnitt. Zu diesem Ergebnis kommt eine aktuelle Studie aus dem November 2004, die Benchmark Research Ltd. im Auftrag des europäischen IT-Dienstleisters Steria durchgeführt hat. Der öffentliche und der private Sektor in Deutschland und Europa sind sich in Bezug auf die Nutzung von IT-Dienstleistungen jedoch ähnlicher, als Unternehmen und Behörden voneinander annehmen.

"Outsourcing is now seen more as a partnership than losing jobs. Success of Volkswagen cars in India provides more opportunities for our firms back home in a big way," European parliament member Barbera Weiler said here Wednesday.

Weiler, who represents the German Socialist Party, is in India as part a nine-member European parliamentary delegation to understand how this country deals with regulatory issues such as services, standardisation, customs and consumer protection.

Prime Minister, Commodore Frank Bainimarama said outsourcing some functions of the PS would lead to significant improvements in the standard of service delivery over the next four years.

Commodore Bainimarama said it was essential to have clear policy guidelines in place for outsourcing. He said the policy would help reduce expenditure, make more resources available for capital expenditure and encourage private sector growth.

The Public and Commercial Services (PCS) union has warned that UK jobs could be offshored following an announcement that back office civil service work is to be outsourced to Steria.

According to the union, the Cabinet Office is outsourcing a range of shared services in several government departments, including IT, HR and finance, to French IT company Steria.

The outsourcing deal is expected to take over the council's 'business package', which incorporates finance, procurement, revenues and benefits, ICT, customer services and human resources.

All too often, success or failure of government outsourcing or shared services contracts is down to perception.

To see the true value of outsourcing, the government must ensure that improvements are measured. Of the five major shared services arrangements studied recently by the National Audit Office, only two are making any attempt to track their cumulative benefits. Not monitoring results at all could be considered negligent. There is an argument for mandation to make such practices illegal.