Introduction

Strategic context

The role of the Government Chief Information Officer (CIO) within the State Services Commission (SSC) is to provide leadership in the use of ICT across government, specifically in the areas of:

• Value for money²: advice to Ministers on ICT expenditure, including implementation and operation of the Gateway programme for major investments, ICT syndicated procurement and ICT capability and skills across government agencies.
• Strategic leadership: setting expectations of government organisations for improved front-line services through the use of technology to achieve government outcomes and meet New Zealanders expectations, promoting collaboration between government organisations in the development and use of ICT systems, providing guidance and support, and reporting on progress. This includes leading the Networked State Services Development Goal² and the E-government Strategy³.
• Fostering innovation: applying technology to create innovation in service delivery, working with government agencies and the New Zealand ICT industry to utilise and leverage New Zealand skills and expertise for government.

About the Government Use of ICT Survey 2008

The Government Use of ICT Survey is a survey of government CIOs (or equivalent role) that aims to provide information about the present state of government ICT use and ICT investment practice. Its purpose is to inform decisions and monitor progress relating to the Value-for-Money State Services and Networked State Services development goals.

In 2008, the survey was administered by the State Services Commission and took the form of an online questionnaire. It covered 163 State sector organisations - 144 central government organisations and 19 State-owned enterprises. The overall response rate was 64 percent, but was somewhat higher for larger organisations and lower for smaller organisations (e.g. 95 percent for organisations with more than 1,000 employees and 22 percent for organisations with less than 50 employees). The survey results are therefore more representative of larger organisations than of smaller ones.

The survey covered the following topics, each broadly relating to a development goal but with some overlap:

Value for Money:

• ICT expenditure
• ICT investment practice
• Plans for ICT investment
• ICT infrastructure (specifically desktops/laptops and servers, Internet connections and video technology)
• Open source software
• ICT staff.

Networked State Services:

• Networked State Services development goal indicators
• Use and awareness of standards
• Data exchange with other organisations
• Data reuse, specifically capability around web content management systems.

Additional questions on organisations' desktop strategies and use of the G2006 Microsoft volume licensing agreement were also included. The latter data are currently being used as part of the G2009 negotiations and are not published in this report.

The Government Use of ICT survey was previously run by Statistics New Zealand which undertook one collection in 2006. The 2008 and 2006 questionnaires have several questions in common but there is limited scope for comparison, as unlike the 2008 collection, the 2006 collection included local government organisations and tertiary education institutions and excluded State-owned enterprises. Further differences are outlined in the Technical Notes section.

It should be noted that ICT activity can occur throughout business units in an organisation and may not always be visible to the Chief Information Officer or equivalent role that responded to this survey. The results therefore reflect the CIO's picture of ICT in the organisation, which may differ from the complete picture.

Footnotes

[² Development goals for the State Services, see http://www.ssc.govt.nz/development-goals ]

[³ E-government Strategy, see http://www.e.govt.nz/about-egovt/strategy/ ]