Government backs ERP change of direction with funding

Some of the savings from the government’s GovERP scale-back are to be spent assessing new shared services models.

At the end of November, finance minister Katy Gallagher announced changes to the SAP-based GovERP project.

In the Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook (MYEFO) budget update  [pdf], the government outlined where some of the savings from GovERP would be spent.

A total of $18.3 million resulting from the “reprioritisation” of GovERP funding will be spent “to support a new approach to Australian Public Service Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP)”.

Gallagher’s November announcement said smaller government entities would now be allowed to make their own choices of ERP, rather than having to standardise to GovERP.

That will be supported by $5.2 million over the next two years, to help smaller entities “assess their ERP uplift requirements”.

There will also be $1.1 million for the Department of Finance to conduct “an independent assessment of reuse opportunities from the investment in GovERP”.

The bulk of the spending, however, will be in $12 million to maintain the Service Delivery Office ERP environment to the 15 entities that use it.