Gershon re-investment proposals due next year: Tanner

The Federal Government expected to start looking at proposals for the re-investment of savings from cost-cutting in the wake of the Gershon review "over the next couple of months", Finance Minister Lindsay Tanner said today.

Speaking from Melbourne via teleconference, Tanner said that implementation of the Gershon strategy was "broadly on track in terms of savings".

The strategy compelled Government agencies with over $20 million in IT spend to reduce it by 15 percent. Agencies with between $2 million and $20 million IT spend were to make cuts of 7.5 percent.

"We're working through the outcomes of phase one and the early stages of phase two," he said.

"In the not-too-distant future we'll be considering submissions on the re-investment of those savings."

Tanner said re-investment submissions would likely be considered "as part of the Budget process next year". He clarified this later to mean in "the next couple of months."

"A lot will depend on the quality of the re-investment proposals," Tanner said.

"We want quality propositions that deliver real value for the taxpayer."

Tanner said one of the productivity metrics he was personally interested in was the proportion of spending that was devoted to the administration of government rather than public measures.

The Minister also touched on other activities including the Government's data centre consolidation strategy and the consolidated desktop procurement panel unveiled earlier this month.

He believed prioritisation of agency needs would be a complicating factor in the data centre consolidation process.