ID card roll-call for 16.7m Ben Woodhead JANUARY 09, 2007
GOVERNMENT TO PROCEED WITH ACCESS CARD "A detailed analysis of the financial benefits of the access card by KPMG indicated that it could generate savings of up to $3 billion over 10 years."
The stakeholders changing and diverse interests will need to be balanced in order to acheive the objectives of this project. A budget of around $1billion dollars has been identified and will require a very effective governance framework to manage the risks associated with a project of that scale.
There has already been speculation that the estimated cost of the project is too low.
Can a tenderer bid for both contracts?
The access card will separately tender the System Integrator and the Cards contracts. While tenderers may choose to bid for both, the same tenderer will not be awarded both.
Is the bid bond required to be placed in advance or to hand performance bond after winning the contract? How much is the amount of the bond?
There is no bid bond required for the Systems Integrator RFT. Potential tenderers will need to review the draft Contract released with each Request for Tender to determine the proposed contractual requirements.
In what form of bond is acceptable? Bank note, bank guarantee letter
There is no bid bond required for the Systems Integrator RFT. Potential tenderers will need to review the draft Contract released with each Request for Tender to determine the proposed contractual requirements.
Government officials have told potential suppliers for the AU$1.1 billion health and social services access card to forget providing "bleeding-edge technology" ahead of the first request for tender early next month.
"We're not interested in elaborate, customised solutions that put at risk the program budget," Hartland said.
"We're not interested in bleeding-edge technology."
The government wants off-the-shelf technology as it aims to have vendors contracted by early next year. Contractors would have one year to design and develop their system, according to Hartland.
Johnson said the government was looking for vendors with strong experience in systems integration and card issuance and management.
The systems integrator contract would be for a fixed price, with payments linked to the completion of project phases.
THE federal Government will start signing up Australians for its $1.1 billion human services smartcard from April next year, using a network of 600 offices and a fleet of vehicles kitted out as mobile registration units.
Tenders for the systems integration contract were issued last Friday as the Office of the Access Card launched the first procurement phase of the access card project. Likely bidders for the systems integration contract include CSC, IBM, Accenture and Unisys.
Ms Johnson said the scope of the systems integration work, which includes the installation of software to manage cardholder data and inter-agency information sharing, meant that there would be relatively few bidders.
Mr Hockey last week said tenders would be issued in four tranches, covering smartcard suppliers, a major systems integrator, a smartcard terminal supplier and transaction services providers.
"We will seek tenders to enable us to establish a panel of card suppliers, Mr Hockey said.
"One of these suppliers will also provide card management software for the more than 16.7 million cards. Office of Access Card chief technology architect Marie Johnson said the Office was consulting widely with stakeholder groups on the project, including different levels of government.
Several of these groups are involved with public transport.
"Each of the state transport providers is looking at improvements in the way they deliver their own services," said Johnson.
There was potential for public transport ticketing systems to integrate with the access card, according to Scott.
Tenders will not be accepted after march 2007 and the contract is planned to be awarded from june 2007.
food for thought.
cheers, walt.
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