DTA to identify share of govt IT deals won by Aussie businesses

The Digital Transformation Agency is looking to identify the share of government IT deals being won by Australian businesses and small to medium enterprises.

This information is currently not available on the AusTender procurement information system.

The DTA also wants to begin disclosing where vendors are "geographically located".

“The DTA is interested in establishing a baseline (from 2015-16) of SME and Australian business participation in ICT procurement and delivering ongoing insights,” it said in a brief posted on the digital marketplace.

The agency will go back over the past three years of financial data to tag contracts with company size and location.

It is currently appealing to the marketplace for a partner to perform the analysis in collaboration with data analysts from the DTA.

The work follows calls for a metric on the percentage of annual IT spending going to Australian businesses, in particular SMEs, by the IT procurement taskforce, which the government accepted.

It also follows criticism of the number of contracts being won by SMEs through the digital marketplace, which was introduced to open up government IT procurement.

At senate estimate last month CEO Gavin Slater said he was unsatisfied with the performance of the SME-focused buying portal to date and indicated an intention to increase the participation rate.

Unlike AusTender, the digital marketplace tracks the number of deals that go to SMEs.

The federal government has already committed to free up further $650 million of its IT spend for SMEs each year.