Audit of the procurement of ICT products with the potential to be standard products
ICT procurement system reviewed SFAO points out what is critical in ICT procurement. Requirements management is extremely important, as well as procurement strategies for relevant product groups. Legal rules should protect investments and support competition, but they can still be insufficient without appropriate reporting - if you want your system to adapt to changes.
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Audit of the key ICT project federal GEVER programme Federal Chancellery
During the first stage, two new GEVER (electronic records and process management) products were procured in an open WTO tender within the framework of the two-product strategy (federal GEVER WTO ... procurement project). CHF 1.6 million was spent on these. The departments and Federal Chancellery (departments/FCh) had to choose one of the two products within three months of the contract being awarded. ... ... Advanced process management system's cost-effectiveness and deadlines at risk ... Ever since 1990, sequential controls and file management have been part of the Federal Administration's IT landscape (GEVER business administration). Significant obstacles have to be overcome ... in order to ensure the successful creation and introduction of GEVER. Previous efforts did not have any widespread success and led to a diverse GEVER landscape. The federal GEVER project has now laid ... the foundations for simplification and centralisation.
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Building and Implementing the Phoenix Pay System
Expensive IT project became a failure Phoenix project (development of states pay system) was an incomprehensible failure of project management and oversight. Phoenix executives prioritized certain aspects, such as schedule and budget, over other critical ones, such as functionality and security. Phoenix executives did not understand the importance of warnings that the Miramichi Pay Centre, departments and agencies, and the new system were not ready. They did not provide complete and accurate information to deputy ministers and associate deputy ministers of departments and agencies, including the Deputy Minister of Public Services and Procurement, when briefing them on Phoenix readiness for implementation.
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Centralisation of support services of state authorities
Most goals of centralisation of support services were achived Centralisation of support services of state authorities has generally been successful, the quality of accounting has improved, and accounting has become more effective. The objective of saving on costs was not achieved. It would be beneficial to analyse the implementation of a similar model in local governments, i.e. concentrating the accounting services to central units in order to improve the quality of accounting and make work more effective. It would allow saving working time on doing routine accounting procedures and use this time more for financial management, which helps to use public funds better and more expediently.
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State aid for IT projects in social and health care
In 2000-2009 about 180 million euros in national and European Union funds went to finance information technology projects in social and health care, not including the costs of developing national ... information system services (KanTa project) or the National Project for Social Services IT (Tikesos project). Financing has been provided by the Ministry of Social Affairs and H ealth, the Finnish Funding ... Agency for Technology and Innovation (Tekes), regional councils (previously state provincial offices), and indirectly by the Slot Machine Association under the direction of the Ministry of Social Affairs ... Difficult coordination of IT projects ... Finish Audit Office analyzed results of poor cooperation between authorities on national and local level in social and health care projects: difficult integration of information systems and poor ... coordination of the financing information technology projects, including double financing.
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The National Government Service Centre – Has administration become more effective?
The purpose of this audit has been to investigate whether the Service Centre has made administrative operational support functions taken over from client agencies more effective, and to find ... explanations for the results so far achieved by the Service Centre. The audit has also aspired to illustrate how agencies that do not subscribe to the services regard their potential for doing so ... . These viewpoints have been analysed with a special focus on the conditions that applied to the Service Centre when it was formed and the measures taken by the Government and the Service Centre in the first years. ... ... Has Swedish public administration become more effective? ... The Service Centre – payroll and financial administration IT system for Swedish public agencies under the government – has achieved the target of a subscription rate of 25 per cent of the total ... number of state employees. However, subscription to the Service Centre was initially slower than the Government had predicted and meant lower revenues than expected in autumn 2013. The Service Centre ... then introduced a rigorous review of its expenditure, for example for some planned development initiatives for internal procedures and support systems.<br/>The Swedish NAO noted that the Government’s steering
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Effectiveness of the execution of the eHealth project
The Court of Audit of the Republic of Slovenia has audited how effectively the Ministry of Health had managed the project eHealth - the national plan for developing information system support ... to the national public health system in the period between 1st of January 2004 and 26th of September 2013. The audit has focused on the effectiveness of the Ministry in achieving the project’s goals, time ... management, management of the human resources and financial oversight. The goal of the Ministry was to implement a modern information system, which would support secure eHealth operations and effective ... ... Clear concept, good planning and financial control are indispensable conditions for a successful IT project ... The Court of Audit of the Republic of Slovenia analysed a Government eHealth project. Its goal was to implement a modern information system, which would support the health services and health related ... data. The Court has pointed at a long list of project management fundamentals to be corrected.
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Steps Needed to Identify Acquisition Training Needs for Non-Acquisition Personnel
Non-Acquisition staff can be crucial for acquisition Despite from hundreds of billions of dollars spent annually to acquire products and services, the US Department of Defense does not full information about staff to be trained. The information is needed about the non-acquisition staff, who can play crucial role in particular acquisitions. As GAO underlines, their identification is necessary to fully understand the training needs and... budget.
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Use of consultants and temporary staff
New skills needed in a longer term UK NAO: Used well, consultants and temporary staff can be an important source of specialist skills and capabilities that are uneconomic for departments to maintain in their permanent staff. Since 2009-10, the government has used spending controls to reduce its use of consultants and temporary staff, and by 2014-15 spending had fallen by £1.5 billion. However, spending has increased by between £400 million and £600 million since 2011-12, suggesting that this was more of a short-term reduction than a sustainable strategy. In the longer term, departments will need to develop workforce, skills and capacity plans to reduce their dependence on external skills. They will need to improve their strategic workforce planning to determine where they can deploy existing staff, where they need to recruit, and where they need to engage temporary resources. Without this, departments cannot demonstrate that they are achieving value for money from the use of consultants and temporary staff.
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