The theme for World Telecommunications and Information Society Day 2012 is Women and Girls in ICT. Relevant government ministries and agencies around the world are encouraged to prioritise the implementation of policies that develop talent and the skills necessary to build a vibrant and diversified ICT sector. These policies should engage women and girls at all levels to fully utilise and promote the full breadth of talent in the country. In Australia, we will be marking the day by raising awareness and celebrating the contribution women in ICT have made in the Australian Government.

Despite accounting for 48 percent of Australia’s workforce, women represent approximately one-fifth of Australia’s ICT workforce. This marks a tremendous opportunity for us to improve.

The Australian Government recognises the need to assist women advance their careers in ICT. Accordingly, the Government established the APS mentoring program, in partnership with DELL^TM, and the Women in IT Executive Mentoring (WITEM) Coaching Circles. These programs provide women in Executive Level ICT positions with mentoring opportunities, career development advice, professional group coaching sessions and leadership training.

I congratulate the participants of World Telecommunications and Information Society Day 2012, and am excited to see how your comments and discussion will contribute to our understanding of women’s involvement in ICT.

More information on whole-of-government ICT coaching and mentoring programs supported by the Department of Finance and Deregulation is available on the Finance website.

More information on World Telecommunications and Information Society Day is available on the International Telecommunication Union website.

If you have information or comments on a program that supports the involvement of women in the ICT industry, we would love to hear about it in the comments below.

Trend Micro EVOLVE.Cloud Conference, 1 May 2012

• Audio: http://soundcloud.com/agimo-sounds/john-sheridan-trend-micro
• Transcript: EVOLVE.Cloud 1 May 2012 transcript DOC (49KB)
• Presentation: EVOLVE.Cloud 1 May 2012 presentation PDF (3,560KB)

Australian Information Industry Association (AIIA) Victorian Govt Networking Forum, 7 May 2012

• Audio: http://soundcloud.com/agimo-sounds/john-sheridan-aiia-vic-7-may
• Transcript: AIIA Forum 7 May 2012 transcript DOC (80KB)
• Presentation: AIIA Forum 7 May 2012 presentation PPT (2,700KB)

I also gave the Data Centre as a Service industry briefing on 2 May 2012. You can find that material in the blog post for the event.

We’re in the process of testing some different ways that we can make presentations given by AGIMO staff available to readers of the Blog. If you have any ideas or suggestions for ways to do this cheaply, preferably using open source products and meeting our accessibility requirements, please let us know in the comments.

As government agencies are obliged to make all online information accessible and authors are responsible for ensuring the accessibility of their documents, it is important that authors understand how to do this properly. Our initial National Transition Strategy (NTS) survey highlighted the need for better education around the creation of more accessible online documents. Creating an accessible Word document is often the first step to creating accessible PDFs and web pages. We are very keen to develop accessible document authoring skills across the APS, so if you are responsible for authoring web content or creating other documents, these sessions are for you.

In these sessions Microsoft will walk users through common techniques for creating accessible documents in Microsoft Office. The presentation will cover information about both the tools available for ensuring accessibility as well as how to effectively use styles and formatting. Users will also be given a basic understanding of how to correctly use graphics in a document. The sessions will be led by Daniel Hubbell. Daniel is the Technical Evangelist for Microsoft’s Accessibility team and is also the president of the board of directors for the Assistive Technology Industry Association. Daniel has a degree in communications from San Francisco State University and has been with Microsoft for more than 14 years.

Two identical training sessions will run in the morning and afternoon of 24 May 2012 at the University of Canberra.

Please note that attendance is free but places are limited. Please register online directly with Microsoft to secure your place.

If you cannot attend on this date, don’t worry – Microsoft intends to record the sessions and will make them available to be viewed after the event.

It’s always good to get a positive response to our call for nominations. This year it is pleasing to see that we received 56 nominations across the three Award programs.

What is particularly pleasing to hear was that the number of nominations received from across all the three levels of government was relatively evenly balanced. We received 20 nominations from Commonwealth agencies; 21 nominations from State agencies; and 15 from Local Government bodies. I think these figures show that Australia’s pool of ICT talent crosses all government sectors.

To those 21 finalists that have made it through to the next round of judging I wish them well. To the remaining 45 nominees I say don’t be disappointed. As I mentioned when I opened the Awards, every nomination received is an acknowledgement by your agency of a job well done. May I take this opportunity to again endorse that sentiment and to encourage you all to continue “raise the bar”.

I recommend that you look at the finalist details at the Australian Government ICT Awards Program homepage.

The finalists will now be assessed by a National Judging Panel composed of selected state and territory Chief Information Officers and independent ICT industry representatives.

I hope you will join me in congratulating the finalists announced today and the Award winners when they are announced at the ICT Celebration Dinner, during CeBIT Australia, on 23 May 2012 at the Sydney Convention and Exhibition Centre.

Following the public consultation process, SIGB members held a very effective workshop with a range of senior industry (both ICT and other) executives and academics.  Attendees enthusiastically engaged in the debate, providing SIGB members with very valuable feedback.  So successful was the process that SIGB has agreed to adopt it as a model for the inclusion of independent, external advice in future significant policy development.

As a consequence of the workshop, the broader consultation process, and additional advice from Dr Ian Reinecke, SIGB updated and endorsed the Draft ICT Strategic Vision.  A key element of the Vision continues to be active engagement with the community. Consistent with that, I am sharing this updated version with you today.

Given that the impact of implementing this new Vision falls particularly to AGIMO, David and I felt it prudent to take the opportunity to look at AGIMO’s existing capacity to successfully implement it.  We reached this view in recognition that the major effort over the last three years for AGIMO has been the successful implementation of the ICT Reform Program established in response to the review undertaken by Sir Peter Gershon in 2008.

As the draft Vision represents a shift in emphasis at AGIMO, SIGB needs confidence that AGIMO has the right mix of skills and resources.  With this in mind, last year David asked Ms Helen Williams AO to undertake a review of AGIMO to determine what, if any, changes might be necessary.  Ms Williams provided her report (the report included a small number of sensitive matters, primarily of a commercial and security nature, that have been redacted) earlier this year.  It is a thorough analysis of how best to realign AGIMO’s existing resources to ensure that it is well positioned to address its new tasks.   Her findings demonstrated that, with some shift in focus, AGIMO is well set to lead the implementation of the Vision across the Australian Public Service. We are progressively implementing her recommendations.

At its recent meeting, SIGB discussed the outcomes of Ms Williams’ report and the progress we have already made. These changes will become more obvious over the next few months. I’ll keep you informed as they proceed.

Thank you to those of you who have contributed to our ongoing improvement.

• Draft Strategic Vision for the Australian Government’s use of ICT Version 2 PDF (1.4 MB)
• Draft Strategic Vision for the Australian Government’s use of ICT Version 2 DOC (470 KB)

•  Implementing the ICT Strategic Vision: A report for the Secretary of the Commonwealth Department of Finance and Deregulation on the draft ICT Strategic Vision PDF (540 KB)
• Implementing the ICT Strategic Vision: A report for the Secretary of the Commonwealth Department of Finance and Deregulation on the draft ICT Strategic Vision DOC (200 KB)

• Review of the Operational Activities and Structure of AGIMO PDF (960 KB)
• Review of the Operational Activities and Structure of AGIMO DOC (570 KB)

Finance has entered the lease on behalf of a consortium of agencies to enable access to the benefits of a modern data centre at whole of government pricing. Data Centres are secure facilities and to support their physical security, the agencies involved will not be named.

We’ll include a link to the AusTender notice when it becomes available.

The Panel was announced on 29 March 2011.  The Panel, together with the supporting Data Centre Migration Services Panel, is an initiative of the Data Centre Strategy.

AGIMO is working with agencies to build further consortium leases through the Panel.

Update 9/5/12: The on-demand version of the webcast is now available.

The transcript is available for download here:

• Transcript – AGIMO DCaas industry briefing 2 May 2012 DOC (97KB)
  

The briefing session will provide:

• an overview of the draft DCaaS Sourcing Approach and the draft Head Agreement;
• an update on the anticipated next steps of the project; and
• an opportunity to view the proposed catalogue structure and provide comment.

We’ll manage registration via Austender.

[Update 23/4/12: Link to Austender posting added]

We’re going to use the theatre run by the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations for this event. We’ll do a live webcast of the presentation and will also address questions lodged via webchat and Twitter. We’ll let you know how to participate online a few days beforehand.

To make sure we catch all of your feedback on the DCaaS project, we’re going to keep comments on this thread of the blog open until close of business on 2 May.  I’m really pleased with the level of the thought and effort that’s gone into your comments on the blog to date ­­– it’s been a great example of how consultation via social media can add value for all parties involved in government procurement.

After it’s all said and done, we’ll host a video and transcript of the event here on the AGIMO Blog.

In November 2011, we invited industry to address our cross-agency reference group. Thirty-four companies took part and others provided written responses. The industry presentations helped explain the benefits of cloud computing for the Australian Government and demonstrated to us that cloud offerings are maturing. Our approach to sourcing these services needs to ensure that agencies can consume new services as they become available. We have determined that a standard panel approach will not meet this requirement. Instead, a new approach needs several important characteristics:

• Flexibility: New services and suppliers should be able to be added regularly and without another full approach to market. Agencies should be able to choose whether to use the service;
• Agility: The use of a standard, relatively short, head agreement (signed once upon joining the arrangement) and templated quotations, responses and work orders should allow agencies and suppliers to increase the speed of procurement;
• Balanced Risk: The services should be capped at $80,000 and/or 12 months to reduce the risk exposure and remove the need for complex contracting and related legal arrangements. For example, we are considering whether compulsory arbitration should be a feature of the dispute resolution mechanism to lower the risk of legal costs exceeding the value of the contract;
• Pre-Qualification: The use of a standard method for suppliers to join the arrangement, including simplified financial checking procedures and verifiable references, should give agencies confidence that they are dealing with reputable suppliers. A simple post-delivery assessment by agencies, collated centrally, should build the bona fides of regular suppliers and identify those that are proven to lack the appropriate capability.
• Ease of comparison: By allowing suppliers to characterise their services in a quantifiable manner, agencies should be able to choose the types of services they seek from a menu of suppliers.

The attached documentation provides detail about the proposed approach. Remember, we are seeking your comment on these matters. Your views are crucial in assisting us to develop an arrangement that suits the needs of both government and industry. To assist you, the lines in each document are numbered so comments can be easily referenced. You can post your comments on this blog or email the team (datacentres@finance.gov.au) by 30 April 2012.

• Draft DCaaS Project Sourcing Approach DOC (91KB)
• Draft DCaaS Project Sourcing Approach PDF (225KB)
• Draft DCaaS Project Head Agreement DOCX (98KB)
• Draft DCaaS Project Head Agreement PDF (319KB)

[Update 3/4/12: Sourcing Approach files updated to correct a dead footnote link on p3]
[Update 5/4/12: Sourcing Approach files updated to correct dollar amount in clause 36]

If you are wondering where to start, consider your views on these two issues:

• Would your company accept compulsory arbitration to resolve disputes for contracts under $80,000?
• Would you pay a nominal fee to join the arrangement, say no more than $250, in order to ensure government resources weren’t dissipated in processing applications from highly speculative suppliers?

As part of the consultation, we’ll be conducting a series of industry presentations on DCaaS – watch for details here and on AusTender. The DCaaS Application for Inclusion is planned for release on AusTender by the end of June 2012.

Finally, assuming comments are favourable, we’re also considering a similar approach for an ICT services multi-use list to replace the current arrangements (as discussed in the Portfolio Panels post).

I look forward to vigorous discussions.

John Sheridan

Last week, I attended the launch of the Digital Continuity Plan by my agency, the National Archives of Australia. The plan is a key element of a new whole-of-government policy on digital transition that will see all Australian Government agencies move to a comprehensive digital information and records management regime.

It was great to see such a good turn out to the event, with many agency staff keen to hear from the recently-appointed Director-General of the National Archives, David Fricker. He did not disappoint, launching the plan by telling us that ‘Information is the lifeblood of government.’

Many of us recognise that most government business is conducted digitally, so most information is created digitally. You might think that would mean most information is then managed digitally, but many Australian Government agencies print that information out ‘for the record’. David was keen to remind us that printing digital information significantly reduces its value as it is difficult to share or reuse and it loses much of its context so it is harder to properly understand.

He went on to say that information management in the Australian Government needs to catch up with the digital revolution, to keep the lifeblood flowing.

Ann Steward of AGIMO told us that the Digital Continuity Plan will help agencies keep their information complete, available and useable for the long term. However, we have to work across government to achieve this. The plan complements the work that AGIMO is doing and the Archives, AGIMO and the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) have been working closely and will continue to do so to support agencies in implementing this plan.

I am sure that we all appreciate that well-managed information can underpin good decision-making, effective service delivery and accountability, as well as facilitate innovation.  As Rachael Spalding of the OAIC pointed out to us, it is a critical enabler for recent government initiatives such as Freedom of Information reforms and the Information Publication Scheme.

Finally, Kerry Moir gave us some insight into how the digital continuity principles and plan were developed.  Understanding that each agency has unique business needs, the  plan is principles-based rather than a ‘one size fits all solution’, providing practical aid for agencies that will help them to both move away from reliance on paper and guide them in managing their digital information for the future.

Thanks to Ann Steward for presenting at the launch and for supporting our plan, telling us it is an excellent plan, it is simple, in plain English and do-able.

Thanks also to Rachael Spalding from the OAIC for her presentation highlighting the relationship between the plan and the FOI reforms.

Finance, through AGIMO, manages a whole-of-government agreement with Microsoft known as the Microsoft Volume Sourcing Agreement (VSA). AGIMO requires the services of a LAR to allow agencies to place orders for Microsoft products under the VSA. The engagement of Data#3 in this role is the result of an open market Request for Tender that we issued in November 2011.

The Head Agreement with Data#3 has an initial term of three years. The initial term may be extended by Finance for up to three further periods of one year.

It is mandatory for all Financial Management and Accountability Act 1997 (Cth) agencies to use the LAR arrangement where there is a requirement to purchase Microsoft products. Other agencies that can access this arrangement include:

• all bodies subject to the Commonwealth Authorities and Companies Act 1997 (Cth);
• any other body governed by the Governor-General or a State Governor or by a Minister of State of the Commonwealth or a State or Territory including departments in State or Territory Governments; and
• any incorporated company controlled by the Commonwealth or a State or Territory.