Chief Information Officer Group
Sourcing Reform
Purpose
The purpose of these pages is to share information about the initiatives being undertaken by the Sourcing Reform Branch within the Chief Information Officer Group (CIOG), Department of Defence. The website is a dynamic site which allows for updates to be made as new or additional information comes to hand. Parties interested in its content are encouraged to visit the site regularly to check for updates.
Contact for further information pertaining to the Sourcing Reform Branch should be made via the dedicated email address at:
Background:
The Department of Defence manages a highly complex Information and Communications Technology (ICT) environment, with a large variety of stakeholders, a diverse group of users (including many in remote locations), and a number of ICT service providers.
The Department of Defence maintains a significant and complex range of commercial, Government, specialist military and bespoke applications. As such, the Department of Defence’s requirements are very specific and in some circumstances, unique. These systems operate across geographically dispersed, fixed, deployable and mobile networks and on most types of modern hardware and communication bearers.
Independent reviews including the 2007 Defence Management Review (Proust), 2008 Review of the Australian Government’s use of ICT (Gershon) and the 2008 Audit of the Defence Budget (Pappas/McKinsey) identified the need for the Department of Defence to improve the management of ICT and for deep reforms of business processes to improve efficiency and effectiveness.
Addressing the recommendations of these reviews, the Defence White Paper 2009 (WP09) identifies a series of organisational and resource challenges that demand long-term reform and remediation, including the effective management of the Department of Defence's ICT systems which are critical to ensuring the effectiveness of all Defence capabilities.
In support of these requirements, the ICT Sourcing Strategy was developed to lay a path to improve the way that Defence ICT services are provided. The strategy recommended the consolidation of Defence ICT infrastructure into three outsourced bundles:
- Terrestrial Communications;
- Centralised Processing;
- Distributed Computing
Sourcing Reform Branch is responsible for implementing the fundamental changes to the way the Department of Defence sources and delivers ICT capability through sourcing the capabilities included in each of these three bundles.
Further information regarding these initiatives can be found at:
- Force 2030, Defending Australia in the Asia Pacific Century - Defence White Paper 2009
- The Strategic Reform Program - Delivering Force 2030
- Defence Capability Plan 2009
- NCW Roadmap 2009
- Defence Information and Communications Strategy 2009