The New South Wales Government has announced plans to make the state “the nation’s leader in information communications and technology”, lifting its performance to compete with Victoria and Queensland, both of which have allocated substantial funding to create strong IT sectors.

 

The New South Wales Government plans to deliver a new ICT strategy within weeks, which will focus on the simplification of existing IT and whole-of-government delivery targets.

 

As an initial step, the NSW Government held its first 'Strategic ICT Forum' at the NSW Parliament, hosting over 80 industry and government leaders in what State Services Minister Greg Pearce described as "a new era" of ICT in the state.

 

Mr Pearce outlined three main areas that will underpin the government's push to "put ICT front and centre of government". They include improving service delivery, better targeted ICT investments and improving communications with industry.

 

"The NSW government ICT strategy will be underpinned with several key principles," he told participants who included Department of Education CIO Stephen Loquet, NSW Police Assistant Commissioner Catherine Burn, IBM Australia boss Andrew Stevens, Telstra Business group managing director Deena Shiff and outgoing Australian Information Industry Association head Ian Birks.

 

"We want to better align service delivery objectives to improve the quality and responsiveness of government services.

 

"(We want) to facilitate sustainable efficiency gains through strategic and targeted ICT investment and to interact better with industry and the research sector.

 

"These core principles will support our vision to put ICT front and centre of government," Mr Pearce said.

 

“ICT provides the way to better deliver services to residents while at the same time enabling Government to be more flexible and efficient in the conduct of its business," Mr Pearce said.

 

The NSW Government will develop a new ICT strategy that it hopes will propel NSW to IT dominance through efficiency gains through ICT investment and promote effective government interaction between government, industry and research sectors.

 

"We will define the strategic direction for ICT so it's clearly understood within government and by industry, framing it for the long term rather than budget cycle horizon," Mr Pearce said.

 

"We will align ICT across government with centrally determined priorities and policies and we will build strong links between specialist ICT governance arrangements and government innovation frameworks such as the NSW Innovation Council.

 

"And as well we will align shared and corporate services and reform government arrangements to drive consolidation and simplification of core services," he said.

 

"(But) none of this can be achieved without an overarching governance framework."