DTA making progress with ICT procurement reform

The Digital Transformation Agency (DTA) has made strong progress implementing the 10 recommendations of the ICT Procurement Reform Taskforce report over the past 12 months since its publication.

The implementation of these recommendations has prompted the agency to stop talking about ICT procurement and instead refer to the process as digital sourcing, the agency’s Chief Strategy Officer, Dr Anthony Vlasic, said in a blog post detailing the agency’s progress to date.

Attention is shifting away from procuring ICT equipment to a focus on ICT as an enabler of digital transformation, and this means governments must evolve beyond a procurement process to playing a role in defining the problems being solved through sourcing ICT products and services.

Meanwhile the DTA has recently released the new Digital Sourcing Framework for government agencies, which was one of the taskforce’s key recommendations.

The framework has been designed to provide principles, policies and guidance that outline how to buy digital products and services.

Other initiatives aimed at satisfying the 10 recommendations of the report include completing three whole-of-government supplier agreements, launching the hardware and software versions of the Digital Marketplace procurement portal, and simplifying the standard government–supplier contract template for digital products and services.

“With the first year now complete, we have moved our attention to making government more ‘open for business’. That is, increasing opportunities to a broader set of suppliers,” Vlasic said.

“After only a year, we have a line of sight to how we can deliver real transformational change. The real test — and how we will know that these tools and strategies have all come together — is if we succeed in changing the conversation from ICT procurement to digital sourcing.”

Image credit: ©stock.adobe.com/au/Amgun

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