The Department of Public Service and Administration (DPSA) will spend R38.747 million on its information and technology management (ITM) programme this year. This is 9% of its total expenditure estimate of R412.306 million.
A presentation before the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Public Service and Administration, yesterday, shows the ITM programme is expected to rise to R40.059 million in the next financial year and then to R46.763 million in the 2010/11 year. These numbers do not reflect the State IT Agency's budget, which falls under the DPSA, but is handled separately.
DPSA director-general Richard Levin said the ITM project was being used mainly to support a number of ongoing programmes within his department and other government departments.
One of the IT initiatives, pointed out by Levin, was a geographic information system (GIS) being developed to help the DPSA work out where its top management is located in terms of an overall plan to create a single public service.
"We have noticed that we are top management heavy," he said. "The GIS will tell us where our service location points are located, what skills are available and if we should have top management located there."
Levin said achievements for the DPSA, in terms of IT programmes, included an electronic inventory of government information systems compliance report that was presented to the Government IT Officer's Council (Gitoc) ICT standing committee.
The service-oriented architecture portion is nearing completion, according to Levin, and documentation has been circulated to the Gitoc architecture standing committee for comments.
Other issues covered by the DPSA's ITM project include an improvement in the access to government services through the use of ICT. This includes expanding the Batho Pele portal operations, and improving governance and administration through the next-generation e-government implementation that is due to start in March 2009.
Levin said there would be a review of IT procurement, the implementation of the government's open source strategy, an audit of call centres, and an assessment of the functionality and effectiveness of mobile units.
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