DTO wants contractors to fill IT skills gaps

The Digital Transformation Office is turning to external contractors to fill gaps within its IT skills base, as the agency continues an aggressive recruitment spree that has so far seen it poach leading IT figures from the UK government and the office of the Australian PM.

It has asked service providers to pitch for business on a new panel from which the DTO and other Commonwealth agencies can procure staff for IT projects. The panel will last one year and have the potential to extend by two further periods of six months each.

The DTO is looking for nine specific areas of expertise:

• Project managers familiar with the agile methodology;
• Business analysts familiar with a range of digital services, especially with open source and cloud technologies, as well as applying agile methodologies;
• Delivery managers (scrum master) to facilitate daily stand-up and weekly team meetings, plus agile coaches who will work with government departments and agencies to embed an agile culture;
• User researchers responsible for building understanding of the service’s users and their behaviour;
• Service and interaction designers;
• Technical leads, developers, ethical hackers and web DevOps engineers;
• Inclusive designers who will support the team with an in-depth knowledge of best practice in accessible development; and
• Transformation advisers to provide leadership in delivering new programs of work, either within the DTO or across multiple functions.

In each category, service providers will be required to deploy staff in various locations at just five days’ notice.

Panel members will need to have at least five years’ experience, including with working in an agile development environment.

The terms of the contract ask consultancy firms to nominate a daily or hourly rate, with the tender agreement explicitly stating the DTO will not be liable for “any judicial decisions or any resulting order relating to [unpaid] employee entitlements”.

Successful bidders will also be required to comply with various pieces of legislation, including the Workplace Gender Equality Act.

iTnews contacted the DTO for further information about the tender, but did not receive a response prior to publication.

The creation of the panel comes after the DTO announced it was looking to hire around 20 developers, designers, researchers and product managers to help "accelerate the pace of digital transformation" across the federal government in August last year.

The agency has previously expressed its willingness to recruit both "exceptional" graduates and experienced professionals.

This search for talent also led the agency to recruit the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet’s former chief information officer, Radi Kovacevic, and ‘boy wonder civil servant’ Jordan Hatch from the UK’s Government Digital Service.

Contractors wishing to apply for the tender will need to submit their responses by March 25 ahead of the tender closing on April 4. Applications will then be evaluated through April, before the winners are announced in May.