The New Zealand government, where the governmental structure is not so far different from that in the UK is changing the wild way it manages its ICT, according to the Australian Government News. I have discussed this before and most recently raised the issue here with regard to the UK. Typically, the article only refers to NZ central government, so surely the next step is the councils?
If shared services, joint procurement and all those other good, money-saving, things are to happen, there has to be a common platform to operate from. This means a similar technical platform, architectures that work together, applications with licences from one supplier to assist procurement.
With political will it can be done. When in the private sector I worked for one company that tried to get all its subsidiaries using the same applications, despite the different areas they operated, so it can be done. With the differing businesses they were all in it was a bit of a nightmare but in government service we are all trying to do the same thing? Aren’t we?
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