Government report big gains from telepresence

Stuart Corner
Monday, 31 October 2011 12:27

Business IT - Networking

The Federal Government has detailed the productivity gains it estimates have been achieved from the 36 location telepresence system installed in 2009 under what was initially a $13.8m contract awarded to Telstra and Cisco.

The system now includes 36 TelePresence suites in the seven Commonwealth Government offices, Prime Ministerial and Cabinet offices, Parliament House and the offices of premiers and chief minister agencies in every state and territory.

A total of $13.8m was allocated by the Commonwealth to fund the system and its operation over four years. State governments have contributed an additional $4.6m to the project.

The original plan was for just 20 units; 13 three-screen Cisco TelePresence 3000 units and seven single screen Cisco TelePresence 1000 units. However, according to special minister of state, Gary Gray, total investment in the system is now in excess of $24m.

"Since its launch in October 2009, the TelePresence system'¦is estimated to have already reduced travel and staff costs by $12 million, reduced carbon emissions by 2,330 tonnes and greatly increased productivity because of the time-savings involved."

According to Gray, federal, state and territory governments have held 1031 official meetings over a total of 1660 hours. "The greatest savings from a single meeting to date has been the Budget Review Committee Working Group meeting on August 30 held over 12 different locations which lasted 3.75 hours with calculated savings of $100,600 and 17.7 tonnes of carbon dioxide avoidance," Gray said. He said over four years, it was anticipated the National TelePresence System would save at least $24m.

Gray said that the states' funding had been made under the Council of Australian Governments (COAG). "What that has also meant is that state and territory governments have been able to take advantage of the efficiencies that come from this system." He added that he had "no doubt at all" that state governments would expand the network for their own internal needs.

The system was used extensively in the run-up to CHOGM, in Perth and Terry Crane, head of the CHOGM task force said: "As we got closer to the event I could not send people back to Canberra for the regular steering committee and security subcommittee meetings so we did the vast majority of those using telepresence and it meant I did not lose my key people for two days. It was fabulous and very effective."

Ken Boal, director of public sector for Cisco Australia, said: "We have seen major corporations roll out telepresence, but from a Government perspective it is the Australian Government that is leading the implementation of these types of systems'¦What is innovative about the Australian Government deployment is the inter-jurisdictional deployment. It is by far and away the biggest deployment in the public sector and far and away the best credentialed."