Page 1987 - Week 07 - Tuesday, 5 August 2014
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We also recognise the fact that the community is demanding 24/7 access to government services and also the capacity to interact with government in terms of the various fees and charges that apply. We should be able to do that online. That trend is growing so we need to regularly update our systems in order to, firstly, achieve a level of service to the community that is commensurate with their expectations and, secondly, continue to drive reduced costs across service delivery.
We will look at a variety of measures. There are a number of projects that are underway. We look forward to the successful delivery and procurement of those particular solutions and lower administrative costs into the future.
MADAM SPEAKER: Supplementary question, Mr Doszpot.
MR DOSZPOT: Will the government be replacing low-skilled work at service locations with ICT workers?
MR BARR: I think that, over the longer term, that is a reasonable expectation that has occurred in most areas of management of high-volume transactions. Consumers are making that shift. What we as the government can certainly look to do across our workforce of nearly 20,000 staff is provide new, higher skilled opportunities to invest in the training and development of our staff and provide a range of career options. We look forward, as these projects and this evolution continue, to being able to deliver better services to the people of Canberra and to add more value. We see clearly a role for staff to be able to add value, but in terms of manual processing jobs, particularly in relation to the payment of charges and the like to government, it is a reasonable expectation that, over time, more of those will be automated. Consumers will drive that, simply by making their payments online.
MADAM SPEAKER: Supplementary question, Mr Smyth.
MR SMYTH: Treasurer, will ICT workers who develop and maintain the government’s ICT initiatives be all locally sourced?
MR BARR: No, they would not all be locally sourced. I imagine that the vast majority will but there will be obviously some pieces of work that may be tendered for by companies that operate nationally or internationally but that have a presence in the ACT. Our procurement guidelines certainly give a weighting in favour of local SMEs, “local” defined as the capital region of councils. So there is a weighting in favour of locals. I guess it would depend on what your definition is. Are people who work for Microsoft but who are based in Canberra local or not? My view is yes, they are.
Certainly, there will be opportunities for partnerships between smaller local providers with larger multinational or national level companies. We do not need to reinvent the wheel in some new systems. We can certainly adopt or adapt systems that are in place in other councils or other state governments. So I imagine there will be a mixture of opportunity but we are very conscious of the economic development opportunities that this agenda presents to this community and we look forward to working with the local industry in order to maximise the outcomes for them from this government procurement.
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