Comments on: LNP Qld Government kicks off IT cuts

By: Bob

Bob — Wed, 25 Jul 2012 22:45:51 +0000

Dan, get your company on the QLD gov purchasing panel for managed print services and you might have more luck. No agencies will dare to deviate from these SOAs in the current climate.
A number of agencies already have managed print services arrangements in place, the rest are now assessing their options.

By: Dan

Dan — Wed, 25 Jul 2012 08:53:45 +0000

“Settings on all print devices will also be optimised to reduce the use of energy and consumables,” she said. “All machines will be set to print in black and white, double-sided at draft quality and colour printing will be only used where necessary. All print devices will also have settings enabled for energy saving/sleep modes when they are not in use.”

…But we won’t spend a dime on software that can track and measure this kind of thing and actually hold people accountable in their departments, that would be just too much to actually have real, accurate reporting. Imagine if those reports ever got out to the public…

Ok sarcasm aside, and full disclosure, this is actually my job. I’m the guy that comes in to your business and helps you cut your print and copy spend by 30%*, but it’s going to cost you. It’s called a return on investment. We’ve been trying to sell these solutions to the Qld Gov’t for years but no one wants to listen. It’s either “not in the budget”, or “not on the agenda”. And to be quite frank, not a single person in the public service seems to understand the concept of ROI.

*http://www.decision.ie/_fileupload/idc_white_paper_managed_print_services_en.pdf
(Tying to find a vendor neutral white-paper is like trying to find a non-branded car)

By: QLD Tax payer and QLD Gov IT client.

QLD Tax payer and QLD Gov IT client. — Tue, 24 Jul 2012 01:48:26 +0000

Correction to Northern Blue: long delayed major investment in ICT !!!

You are missing the fundamental point here in QLD and most likely else where.

The clients of government IT departments – (including Tax payer) particlarly those in Queensland have to some extent alreadly largely paid for substantial ICT infrastructure investments that you are describing.

The point of the matter is that these investments have largely been spent for no discernable outcomes/benefit to the IT client base.

Increasingly Treasuries will control the agenda – outsource and devolve to cloud computing – as they rightly discover that the money was spent and it has still left them with ICT infrastructure that is still requiring upgrade.

The party for IT infrastructure investment is already over! Why pay the IT industry to continue to not deliver – when we are clients and as tax payers have largely paid for it already – Basically the QGCIO driven top down centralisation of ICT has failed – at the same time internal dept infrastructures grew. Name an ICT project in QLD government that has delivered – winning an IT award doesnt count.

We spent it and potentially increasingly like the mining boom we will wonder where did it all go – (I know to high priced contractors/consultants whose noses were in the trough).

That is the underlying story here.

By: Northern Blue

Northern Blue — Tue, 24 Jul 2012 01:02:40 +0000

To give some context for non-QLDers, the QLD government is currently accruing about $14 million a day in interest on debts (that’s over $500,000+ per hour) . Hence the steps taken by the new government to curtail this situation. At this stage I think they are working on the idea that lots of little savings (such as with these printing costs) can add up. This may be the case but they will need major expenditure cuts from somewhere shortly. At the same time, given that Windows XP is the defactor desktop in most department, a lot of big metal core infrastructure servers are very dated, and the ongoing payroll IT disaster, it is clear that long delayed major investment in ICT will soon be required.

By: BrownieBoy

BrownieBoy — Mon, 23 Jul 2012 13:42:17 +0000

Maybe they could turn off the printers completely? That way, they’d waste no further paper or ink. And just to be sure, they could turn off the computers too, so users have nothing to print *from*.

Next up, turn off the powers to the escalators so users have to walk up and down them. You laugh? There was a boss somewhere once who really ordered such a move! It was in one of the Dilbert books.

By: james m

james m — Mon, 23 Jul 2012 01:19:08 +0000

‘A senior level officer in each department to coordinate print services’, yep, that sounds about right. The Peter Principle at work again…

By: Edward

Edward — Mon, 23 Jul 2012 01:07:02 +0000

Maybe some of the savings could also go to abating the effects of climate change, like saving the Barrier Reef!