The Government has offered Australia's three mobile operators, and vividwireless, renewal of their existing spectrum allocated on 15 year licences in the late 90s and early 2000s at set prices, while the Government expects to rake in $3 billion.
The 2004-05 year was the start of the last skills demand spike as the
ATO’s Change Program, Centrelink’s refresh, the aborted Access Card
work and the Immigration Department’s Systems for People program got
underway. Customs had its difficulties during that period – problems
that were bombarded with additional resources.
AGIMO has forecast skills demand for years and made scheduling
recommendations about the most efficient way to proceed. But unforeseen
developments – like the Cornelia Rau detention debacle, or even the
Access Card debate – meant political imperatives have a role in
pressing ahead with projects.
In future, Steward says tech skills will be sourced with a more
coordinated approach, and AGIMO is looking at different models that
might allow a more flexible pooling of resources in some areas. And
of course, flattening demand spikes.
"Wholistically, we look at what are the demand areas we have and what
is our collective approach to ensuring we have the skills in place,"
Steward said.
"We have been been tracking this (demand) profile, and there had been
this major peak that had occurred in the 05-06 era – a huge peak, a
huge distortion."
"It wasn’t so much that we didn’t have the skills sets – although there
were some skills that weren’t there – but it was this four-fold
increase in demand."
"The work that we do now in terms of forward projections is to work out
a much flatter process, so that as other major programs come forward,
they don’t distort the demand."
Steward says more than 200 contractor positions had so far been brought
back in-house in the Public Service at a saving of about $17 million –
all early gains for the Gershon process. Those numbers would continue
to rise, she said.
Resolving skills issues for government – and reducing its costly
reliance on expensive contractors – involved a multi-pronged approach:
better identification of skills in demand; pooling of resources;
in-house skills development; bringing contractor skills back in-house;
but as importantly, better demand management.
David Bass
| ComOps, a leading Australian provider of business software products and services, has won a competitive tender to deploy its Salvus safety, r…
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