Government estimates have saved 131 million in technology in … – publico

                 

                         
                     

                 

 
                         

The government estimates have got a direct savings of 54 million euros in spending on information and communication technologies (ICT) in public administration in 2014, compared with 2011. The reduction values ​​obtained over the past year rises to 131 million euros when adding indirect cost savings resulting from reorganizations in computer services and new practices adopted.

                     

The numbers are based on an estimate made by the Executive, which has as its starting point a minimum spend with 300 million technology in 2011, the year in which there was no centralized record this expense gender. For this Tuesday, the Government has scheduled the launch of a website at tic.gov.pt , in which the savings from information and communication technologies will be available to citizens, broken down by ministries and measure under the program for the modernization of public administration.

The site details the outcome of the Government’s policies for this area in the last three years. In January 2012, had been approved by the Cabinet a plan for reducing costs and modernizing public administration. The plan then provided a savings of “nearly 500 million” within five years to 2011, indicating further that “after its implementation in all ministries” would be expected annual savings of 137 million euros.

The strategy was based on a set of 25 measures, full implementation of which can be found at the new site. These measures were a system to evaluate and approve expenditure on ICT, the creation of a unified communications platform that allows reduce spending on communications between the various public bodies (for example, through the adoption of a call system voice made via Internet) and some shared computing resources.

Another measure concerned the preferential adoption of software open in information systems State – in this case, also with the aim of promoting the business of small and medium-sized enterprises could become suppliers of public administration

software . is not necessarily free open, since there may have acquisition costs, training and support. But allows the State has access to all the technology and can still function as a business license at the time of making contracts with major suppliers of software . According to figures provided by the Government, the contracts with the three major suppliers of IT solutions for the state – the multinational Microsoft, Oracle and SAP – ranging between 17 and 45 million per company, for periods of three years. Revisions to agreements with Microsoft already translated up in almost nine million savings are ongoing negotiations with the other two companies.

For next year, the Executive anticipates a 158 million savings, 89 million of which are directly spent on ICT and the rest in associated cost savings, and expects this figure to rise to 332 million in 2016.