Government ICT Update - June 2012

From the Office of the Government Chief Information Officer

IN THIS ISSUE:

  1. Welcome 
  2. IBM joins the Government ‘Infrastructure as a Service’ panel
  3. Mobile Voice & Data agreements signed
  4. Common Web Services update
  5. Ministry for Primary Industries announces vendors for provision of IT Managed Services
  6. SEEMail service update to v3.0
  7. Upcoming Events
  8. More Information

 

Welcome

The government ICT programme, overseen by the Office of the GCIO in conjunction with the ICT Council, is working to improve asset management, unlock value in the information we hold, optimise investment in service delivery and channels, and encourage innovation.

Colin MacDonald took up the role of Chief Executive of the Department of Internal Affairs and Government Chief Information Officer on April 16th. He recently spoke to the 2012 Identity Conference Managing Digital Identity in a Networked World. The conference addressed some of the core issues in government’s interaction with citizens, and implications of technology for government’s management of personal information. You can read his keynote speech here.

 

IBM joins the Government ‘Infrastructure as a Service’ panel

The Department of Internal Affairs has confirmed IBM (NZ) as the third supplier of the Government ‘Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)’. They join Datacom (CSG) and Revera Ltd who were awarded the contract in October 2011.The addition of IBM completes the Infrastructure as a Service panel make-up to ensure sufficient capacity is available to meet Agency demand.

Government Infrastructure as a Service enables agencies to buy datacentre housing and utility computing infrastructure 'on demand.’ This reduces the need for agencies to purchase and maintain their own infrastructure (IT hardware used to run their applications, file storage and other standard ICT functions.)

This procurement syndicate, led by the Department of Internal Affairs (DIA) and the Ministry for Economic Development (MED) will save an estimated $50-250 million over the ten-year contract period, and is part of government-wide procurement reforms.

 

Mobile Voice & Data agreements signed

The All of Government (AoG) Mobile Voice and Data agreements were signed by the Secretary of Internal Affairs on Monday 23 April 2012. Three suppliers have been awarded a panel contract:  Gen-i NZ Ltd, Vodafone NZ Ltd, 2 Degrees.

The new AoG contracts will provide an average of 33% savings compared to the current syndicated mobile agreements which were signed in 2007.

Eligible agencies that have signed a Non-Disclosure Agreement can obtain contract collateral that gives an overview of the panel suppliers’ offers.

 

Common Web Services update

On 10 May DIA released a Notice of Intent for a syndicated panel of web professional service providers. The panel is intended to give DIA and Eligible Agencies a mechanism to quickly identify and engage with preferred suppliers of web professional services where there is a need for expertise that is not available in-house. Resource types sought for the panel are: Information architects; Usability advisors; Website testers; Front-end web developers; Graphical / visual designers; Website technical writers; Accessibility consultants.

The Request for Proposals was released on GETS on 18 May and a vendor briefing has been held. This is the first of two syndicated procurements to come from the Common Web Services Programme, as previously notified in the April GCIO Update.

 

Ministry for Primary Industries announces vendors for provision of IT Managed Services

The Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI - formerly the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry) has announced the outcome of a project to develop a syndicated procurement agreement for the provision of IT managed services.

Three service providers, Datacom Systems (Wellington) Limited, Fujitsu New Zealand Limited and Gen-i, have been appointed as the vendors for the agreement.

The agreement covers the provision of service aggregation, service desk support, user device support, server support, procurement services, database management and other IT services.

Under the new agreement, MPI will engage Fujitsu New Zealand Limited to deliver IT managed services to the Ministry from 1 November 2012.

MPI was the lead agency in developing the agreement, with support from several other public sector agencies. It is possible that other public sector agencies may join the syndicated agreement later.

The syndicated agreement is intended for agencies that already use service aggregation (multi-sourced integration) as their ICT operating model, or those that intend to progress towards this model.

The syndicated agreement was signed on 4 May 2012. The value and other commercial details of the agreement are confidential but are expected to result in cost savings.

 

SEEMail service update to v3.0

The SEEMail (Secure Electronic Environment Mail) service provides encryption to protect emails as they are transmitted between member gateways across the Internet.

During 2009, the Government Communication Security Bureau (GCSB) identified that the SEEMail version 2.0 specification should be reviewed to address potential vulnerabilities. The Department of Internal Affairs (DIA) engaged with various SEEMail providers on this review and during 2010, issued a version 3.0 specification for SEEMail.

As part of DIA’s remit as lead agency to reduce cost and improve the overall SEEMail service, it was identified that the best way to achieve this was to outsource management of the Public Key Information (PKI). As this was contemplated under the terms of the one.govt contract, Dimension Data was selected as DIA’s outsource partner.

DIA is currently in the process of refreshing the SEEMail PKI to enable Dimension Data to provide the version 3.0 PKI. To enable agencies a period of time to migrate to version 3.0, DIA will continue to run the version 2.0 PKI until 5 December 2012, when the core version 2.0 certificate will expire.

GCSB has recommended that all agencies migrate to SEEMail version 3.0 by 5 December 2012, when the version 2.0 certificate will expire. It should be noted that extending the version 2.0 certificate beyond 5 December 2012 would involve considerable expense, which would need to be passed on to the participating agencies.

The vendors who supply SEEMail services to agencies are in the process of upgrading their service to comply with the version 3.0 specification.

 

Upcoming Events

 

18/19 June     GOVIS conference

The GOVIS 2012 Conference will be held on Monday 18 and Tuesday 19 June 2012, at the Museum of New Zealand, Te Papa Tongarewa, in Wellington.

The programme will be packed with a large number of shorter presentations which you can follow up on later, as well as offering in-depth discussions on the core conference topics.

The core topics covered will be: ‘Better Public Services and Customer-centred services’, ‘Open Data' and ‘Information Sharing’, (Monday). ‘Government ICT Roadmap’, and ‘Innovation’ (Tuesday). A two-hour Ideas Fair will run each day from 11 to 1pm, featuring demonstrations, examples, tools and ‘how-tos’.

On Monday morning Colin MacDonald, the new Government CIO and Chief Executive of the Department of Internal Affairs, will give the opening keynote. He will be followed by the cross-agency Service Transformation team talking about recent customer insight work for simpler government services. Monday afternoon will be part formal conference and part barcamp bringing you a showcase of new developments since the roaring success of last year’s Open Government Data Day, ‘You’re only as good as your last release’.

On Tuesday morning, the Office of the GCIO and others will present updates on the ICT Roadmap and a preview of the ICT programme pipeline for 2012/13. Tuesday afternoon features smartphone apps, joint programmes and developments from across the country including projects that feature new ways of working from Christchurch.

Registrations are flowing in – be sure to take advantage of the early bird fees that are available until 21 May, and the concessions for GOVIS members. Shared tickets are available (3 people using one registration) in keeping with the theme of <Share>. Info and registration is on the GOVIS website.

Any queries please contact ros.coote@ssc.govt.nz

 

More information

This newsletter is intended to update you on progress with the government ICT programme. We invite your feedback to help us ensure it meets your needs.

Please keep an eye out for future updates, and contact the Office of the GCIO to share your views or offer assistance.

Stuart Wakefield

Director, Office of the Government Cheif Information Officer

 

 

If you have any questions regarding this GCIO Update, please contact:

Matt Ross,

Manager Agency Engagement,

gcio@dia.govt.nz

phone (04) 494 5775

 

Your comments, questions, and feedback are invited.