[LINK] itNews: States Abandon Centralised Services

[Roger Clarke]

Amazing.

State governments have (re-?)discovered that all of their agencies 
have different missions, and as a result have different data 
processing and information systems needs.

It was totally predictable that inflexible, one-size-fits-all, 
monolithic systems (in WA's case, "finance, procurement, support and 
online services, as well as human resources services based on 
Oracle's eBusiness ERP platform"), while they may or may not ever 
reduce costs, certainly reduce fit-to-the-need, and hence quality of 
service to employees and the public.


WA to pay $370m to scrap Shared Services
Allie Coyne, Paris Cowan
itNews
Aug 12, 2013 10:02 AM (4 hours ago)
http://www.itnews.com.au/News/353082,wa-to-pay-370m-to-scrap-shared-services.aspx

...

>The 2011 report found only 37 percent of agencies had rolled in to 
>the Oracle solution, with the remainder using only finance and/or 
>procurement services. "Extensive customisations" - specifically 1165 
>- of the Oracle solution had contributed to stability and cost 
>issues, the report found.
>
>Additionally, most of the medium to large agencies still left to 
>roll into the shared services arrangements in 2011 and 2012 thought 
>their legacy systems were better than the Oracle system, and 
>predicted a negative impact as a result of an Oracle ERP rollout - a 
>perception backed by agencies which had already rolled out and 
>reported a bad experience.
...
>The dissolution of the shared ERP platform has resulted in a burst 
>of ERP procurement activity in the state, as agencies face the 
>prospect of having to re-establish their own internal capability.
...
>Last month panellist Technology One announced it had secured 21 contracts ...

...

>NSW is reportedly planning to ditch its shared services body BusinessLink ...
>The Victorian Government is set to make its shared services agency 
>CenITex a broker of IT rather than a provider. ...
...
>The Queensland Government adopted a recommendation of the state 
>Commission of Audit report to remove the mandate for compulsory 
>involvement with QSS, and has begun the process to develop a revised 
>model which would see it compete with the market for shared services.
QSS runs finance, procurement, human resources, facilities and mail 
support services for 20 Queensland state agencies
...


-- 
Roger Clarke                                 http://www.rogerclarke.com/
			            
Xamax Consultancy Pty Ltd      78 Sidaway St, Chapman ACT 2611 AUSTRALIA
Tel: +61 2 6288 6916                        http://about.me/roger.clarke
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Visiting Professor in the Faculty of Law            University of N.S.W.
Visiting Professor in Computer Science    Australian National University