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Research released by Telstra has found the public sector has high expectations of ICT-enabled productivity growth over the next 12 months, but only two in five government organisations can articulate the hard measures they use to quantify productivity gains.

Key findings included:

• Improving productivity is the major priority for government organisations – followed by service delivery, cost cutting, risk management and attracting staff.
• While 84% of government organisations see productivity as important, only 40% can articulate the hard measures they use to quantify productivity gains or improvement.
• Around two thirds (60%) of government agencies view productivity as a whole-of-organisation responsibility rather than the responsibility of an individual or work group – but this means that there is often no-one in the organisation to champion productivity gains.
• Over three quarters (77%) of government organisations expect to see improvements in productivity over the next 12 months, with many placing a high priority on ICT investment to drive these productivity gains. However, because of budget constraints, many place as much, if not more, emphasis on getting the most out of ICT already in place rather than investing in new technology.
• ICT is seen as a critical driver of productivity, with broadband and faster network speeds bringing people and offices together.  

The research reveals the ‘productivity gap’ in the public sector is more pronounced than that identified in the private sector.

While the public sector ranked productivity as a higher priority than other organisations, the percentage of government organisations that were able to articulate metrics used to measure productivity improvements was lower. It supports the findings of the Telstra Productivity Indicator published in February 2009 that identified a ‘productivity gap’ where organisations acknowledge productivity is important, but many don’t manage or measure it.

See: Australia – Digital Economy – E-Education and E-Government

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This entry was posted on Monday, November 2nd, 2009 at 10:00 am and is filed under News & Views. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.