Auditor-General’s report, Infrastructure as a Service: Are the benefits being achieved?

The Auditor-General’s report Infrastructure as a Service: Are the benefits being achieved? was presented to the House of Representatives today.

In this report, we look at whether organisations using Infrastructure as a Service and the wider public sector are achieving the benefits expected from it.

The Government Chief Information Office (the GCIO) introduced Infrastructure as a Service to support the previous Government’s goal of providing a more effective and efficient way for organisations to outsource their information and communications technology (ICT) services to private providers. Organisations started using Infrastructure as a Service in 2012/13. At the time of our audit, about a quarter of the organisations that could use Infrastructure as a Service were using it.

We saw some promising signs that those using Infrastructure as a Service consider it worthwhile, and are achieving benefits. The GCIO’s measures show that these organisations are achieving benefits, such as:

• consolidation of ICT infrastructure;
• reduced prices for ICT services;
• business savings from avoided procurement costs; and
• cumulative price savings over time.

However, the GCIO needs to do more to fully assess and report on all its shared services, including the benefits of Infrastructure as a Service. By doing so, the GCIO will be better prepared to support organisations to take up Infrastructure as a Service.

We recommend that the GCIO ensure that the information it collects about all shared ICT services gives as thorough an understanding of their benefits as practical. It is likely that this framework would also provide the GCIO with evidence of benefits that it could use to encourage other organisations to use shared ICT services.

A two-page summary is also available.

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