NSW's ServiceFirst will not exist in six months

New South Wales’s shared services agency, ServiceFirst, will no longer exist in six months’ time, with its operations to be outsourced offshore.

State Finance Minister Dominic Perrottet and Finance Secretary John Hubby revealed that the agency’s days are numbered during a recent budget estimates hearing.

Questions on notice from the hearing reveal that ServiceFirst will be closed within six months.

Responsibility for the shared services remit will instead be outsourced to Infosys and Unisys under a $215 million deal announced back in June.

Under the model selected by the government, 30% of the jobs associated with the work — around 90 jobs — will be offshored to India.

ServiceFirst was established in 2008 to act as a central provider for IT, HR, payroll, finance and other back-office functions for small and mid-size NSW government agencies.

The agency currently employs 242 full-time equivalent staff, down from 305 in July last year. The Finance ministry has been working to relocate staff to other jobs within government.

The ministry has asserted that no information on NSW government workers will be sent overseas but said that the payroll data of some NSW government workers will be accessible by Infosys’s offshore workers.

Image courtesy of Michael Coghlan under CC