Sir Peter Gershon's report on the Australian Government's use of IT focuses on a
core problem: weak governance.
As a result of weak governance, agencies are inefficiently competing for
resources, duplicating effort, not realising benefits, tolerating excessive
costs and failing to detect and control risk.
Mark Toomey presented his views on the Gershon
report, and the Australian IT industry response, to the Australian Computer
Society Victorian branch forum on Wednesday 19 November.
The key linkage is clear - Gershon found that governance is weak in the
Australian Governments use of IT. He referred explicitly to the
definition of provided in AS8015 and ISO/IEC 38500. His recommendation
to the government is plain and clear: Ministers must direct and control the
overall use of IT, and the heads of government departments must ensure that
the government's instructions are followed.
Gershon specified a requirement for change in culture, again linking this to
the responsibility of the people who have top level responsibility.
The Gershon report is overall a case study in describing the consequences of
poor governance, and of the significant actions that must be taken to
improve the situation. Gershon was clear in his view that the change
must start at the top.
ACS members understand that the Gershon review
poses an enormous opportunity for Australia, with scope to become best
practice in governance of IT, development of new career structures and the
IT industry overall, and scope for new innovation in IT use in government.
Download the PDF below, to see the slides that were presented.
