The heart of Gauteng

Governments are bureaucratic. Inefficient. Slow. Inward-facing. These all are fairly standard preconceptions, and a few hours in a Department of Home Affairs queue will convince you that all the above is true. But it doesn`t have to be this way, according to the Gauteng Shared Services Centre (GSSC).

The GSSC has some very lofty ideals for a government department. It`s trying to turn Gauteng`s provincial government around by providing all the back-office functionality that government seems to struggle with. And it wants to run like a private company.

The GSSC`s operations centre in the heart of downtown Johannesburg certainly looks more like a private than a public concern. The airy Imbumba House building on Fox Street defies government beige, the obligatory queues and intimidating architecture in favour of light and space. There is a distinct lack of paper-carrying lackeys and confused clients, and it`s all quite tasteful.

Heading up the centre is CEO Mike Roussos, another breath of fresh air. Unlike the typical brow-beaten government employee, he has the confidence and intelligence of a private CEO, carefully balancing government`s commands with the practicalities of running a billion-rand, 1 000-plus employee company.

The GSSC is responsible for the Gauteng Provincial Government`s contact centre, its document management centre, financial management services, HR management, procurement, auditing and technology. When one considers the size of Gauteng`s infrastructure, that`s no mean feat. Serving SA`s highest-earning province with eight million inhabitants, 110 000 government employees, over 200 government buildings, 43 hospitals, and 2 300 schools from a central hub is an intimidating prospect for any large organisation. For a governmental concern, it seems almost impossible.

"We measure everything we do," says Roussos. "We`re trying to get away from bureaucracy. We are getting better at services - which is a new thing to both our staff and our clients."

Roussos has moved away from many tried-and-untrusted governmental methods of doing business. The grading system for employees is gone, replaced with a three-tier structure for management, team leaders and practitioners. Service level agreements are also in effect between the GSSC and its clients, forcing the organisation to take service pretty seriously.

Roussos is also keen on the shared risk/shared reward concept of partnership with private partners. Speaking at a recent GSSC/ITWeb seminar entitled "Transforming public sector service delivery through IT", EDS Middle East and Africa president Michael Minassian commented: "The structure of a public-private partnership (PPP) should be based on the pure spirit of partnership."

Minassian also spoke of outcomes-based initiatives as being the most effective in EDS`s experience with other government projects, which include Jordan`s five-year blueprint for e-government and the UK Employment Service`s kiosk job centre project.

After three years since its inception and just over one year of operations, the GSSC has solved quite a few of the province`s operational nightmares. According to Livingstone Chilwane, CIO and GM of its technology support services (TSS) division, the province was maintaining between 15 000 and 20 000 PCs with only 140 IT professionals - way out of line with best practice guidelines. "The bottom line is that a huge gap existed in regards to people. We needed to provide the right IT skills in the province."

With a budget of R220 million, which is "likely to be increased substantially", according to Chilwane, the GSSC is hoping to beat the province`s IT infrastructure into some type of shape by partnering with the State IT Agency (SITA) and private organisations.

One of the first projects realised by the GSSC - and probably the most important - is the creation of a wide area network (WAN) that reaches over 270 government buildings in the province. This WAN has opened up the possibilities of offering shared IT services - such as e-procurement and enterprise resource planning - throughout the client base.

Of Chilwane`s 114-strong staff, most are concentrated in the operations division, which manages the WAN, and also takes care of the data centre located on GSSC`s premises. Other divisions, or "centres of excellence" as Chilwane calls them, include information security, application management, program management, service level management and architecture.

Chilwane and the GSSC could be a major player in the e-governance drive that the government is so keen on. The concept is that technology can help deliver services to the population, as well as streamline government-to-government interactions. "The government wants to move to integrated service delivery," says Chilwane. "It`s very important that we simplify and increase the channels between government and the population."

While e-government has been kicked around for some time, the reality of being able to apply for and pick up your ID book from the local library remains conceptual. Some changes are visible, however. The South African Post Office (SAPO) has deployed 15 citizens` post offices - a combination of a post office and an Internet caf'e, connected to the WAN. SAPO also offers a variety of services that are available to government departments, including its trust centre for the creation of digital certificates and its e-filing system for capturing paper-based forms and transmitting them electronically.

"E-government is getting political endorsement," says Chilwane. "The premier has established a political committee for e-governance, and there is an e-governance agenda to take it into the community."

According to Chilwane, e-governance is a lot more than IT. "IT alone can`t do integrated service delivery. You need workflow and document management. Electronic forms and the like need to be on our time horizon."

Gauteng considers itself a "smart province", and as such is keen to be on the leading (and perhaps bleeding) edge of e-government initiatives. Having a resource like the GSSC to call on will certainly boost the probability of success of such an initiative in Gauteng.

Building a centralised hub for Gauteng not only brings customer-facing practices to government (the customers, in this case, being the Gauteng population and governmental workers). Standardisation and purchasing power are two other key benefits for provincial government.

The GSSC has already laid out standards for technology and business processes that any vendors planning on providing services to the GSSC will have to follow.

In terms of purchasing power, the GSSC is keen to barter better deals than the individual offices were able to negotiate. Service and product vendors seem more than interested in the GSSC, smelling the R4-billion-odd of discretionary spend like blood in the water. For vendors, having a single source for tenders is also a boon.

"There are economies of scale that can be pulled into the equation - with more volume, there`s more discount," says e.com institute MD Cassim Parak. "There are huge inefficiencies that exist under government. You have all these departments, each one doing its own thing, negotiating its own technologies. You don`t get your economies of scale in a decentralised system."

But a single government department could mean fewer opportunities for all. One concern raised by some independent local IT vendors is the threat of the GSSC favouring international players over local vendors.

E-government is getting political endorsement.

Livingstone Chilwane, CIO and GM, technology support services of the GSSC

"We want to get value for money and meet government imperatives," says Roussos. "We want to make the public purse stretch as far as possible. But we still encourage new players, new suppliers. When buying from bigger companies, we will make sure that there`s a knock-on effect."

Roussos is quite open about the fact that government finds it easier to deal with larger, established vendors over small and medium enterprises. On the other hand, government has committed itself to uplifting the local IT suppliers, which generally offer better black economic empowerment programmes in terms of equity sharing than their international competitors. It`s a classic case of being stuck between a rock and a hard place.

"How does a business organisation put its future into the hands of small companies? We`ve been trying to find ways to help those companies to grow - to sustain their development over time.

"As Mike [Roussos] commented, in his opinion government can`t be tied to small companies when the long-term survival of those companies can`t be ensured. Any smaller company like ourselves are going to be finding it very difficult doing business with the GSSC unless we can give some kind of assurance that we`re not a fly-by-night," says iLab Enterprise Open Source director Stephen Owens. "On the one hand, I understand his stance, but I would like to see the GSSC including small vendors through creative relationships."

One such "creative relationship" possibility, says Owens, could be the use of "gatekeepers" - larger organisations like the CSIR that take responsibility for smaller vendors when tendering.

"What we`ve seen - and this is what upsets me - is government announcing plans to foster the local economy and ensure there`s growth locally. Then you see foreigners making direct or colluded representation through local partners and inhibiting local growth. They may employ 600 people locally, but that`s only salaries - the balance sheet is offshore," opines Parak. "There are good intentions at a high level, but there`s a huge gap between the high levels and the follow-through on the ground.

"Is the GSSC addressing that? It remains to be seen what Mr Roussos`s plans are."

The local players could also end up playing second fiddle to the likes of SITA and arivia.kom - government`s own IT service companies. As one editor described arivia.kom, it`s a tax to doing business with government. As both state-owned IT houses increase their skills, it will be less tax and more competition without the need for partners.

"I think there is certainly that sense in the industry," says Parak. "SITA is coming into its own, and opportunities are starting to shrink for other local players. There certainly has been a take-up from departments and provinces. SITA - if they don`t possess the skill themselves - tend to partner with the established players. Arivia.kom and SITA are muscling out smaller players, although not by intention."

Owens, who is pushing for the take-up of open source software by government, notes: "I have a very high opinion of Mike and Livingstone. On the surface, the GSSC seems well organised, but the proof of the pudding is going to be in the eating, although I think they`ve had a very good start."

"From my side it`s very pleasing to note that the principles of the e-government project sound good. It`s bringing the government closer to the people by being customer-oriented," says Parak.