Deloitte will be paid $6 million over the next year to assist with the substantial GovERP project delivering the “digital backbone” for the public sector, joining fellow big four consultancy EY as a key private sector partner on the project.
Services Australia has also gone to the market for a cloud hosting platform to host the modernised government technology, which will offer managed accounts, resources and workforce.
The Government Enterprise Resource Planning (GovERP) project has been dubbed the “digital backbone” of the public service, and will see the consolidation and standardised of shared APS service hubs on a new back-end platform.
Services Australia is leading the GovERP program after taking control from the Department of Finance in last year’s budget. The agency entered into a contract with Deloitte for “programme management office services” on the GovERP project in late February, running until the end of June 2023.
“Deloitte will work alongside Services Australia staff to deliver services. They will provide specialised programme management functions including programme and project governance, coordination, management and administration, management of benefits, tracking of programme risks and issues and programme scheduling,” a Services Australia spokesperson told InnovationAus.com.
“Services Australia is designing, building and operating the GovERP platform, which will consolidate and standardise the Australian Public Service’s corporate shared services hubs. These hubs provide essential corporate and financial services to the APS, and the current SAP-based system will reach end-of-life by 2025.”
The contract is worth $6.056 million over the 15 months, and has a confidentiality clause.
Deloitte is the second major consultancy to have been recruited by Services Australia to help deliver the project, with EY landing a $14.5 million contract running from November last year to mid-2023.
Services Australia also issued a tender this week for a service provider to deliver a secure cloud hosting platform to host the GovERP platform, with applications closing in a month.
The GovERP project aims to consolidate and standardise the APS shared service hubs through a standardised back-end platform. Currently these hubs are controlled by six large government departments and provide corporate and financial services to dozens of Commonwealth entities using a SAP-based system which is scheduled for end-of-life in 2025.
The project is seen as one of the most significant tech programs across the government, and has been running since 2019.
The Department of Finance received $67.1 million over two years in the 2019-20 budget for the project, with $35 million of this money going towards private contractors and consultants.
The project was then moved to Services Australia in the 2020-21 budget, where funding was provided over two years but the exact amount kept secret due to commercial in confidence clauses.
Services Australia also established a standing offer last year with six providers for work on the GovERP project: EY, Capgemini, Expense8, SAP Australia, Workday Australia and xAmplify Services.
Deloitte has grown its federal government revenue by nearly 70 per cent – $109 million – since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic. Deloitte received $265.3 million from federal government contracts in the 2021 calendar year, a 23 per cent increased from 2020;
This included a steep rise of 400 per cent in contracts with Services Australia in 2021, up to $29.8 million compared with 45.8 million in 2020.
Deloitte is also leading the revamp of the myGov platform and has been paid nearly $40 million for this work since early 2020.
