Govt CIO: We need more contract staffers

The Hong Kong government will hire more contract IT staffers in the next few years, said government CIO Jeremy Godfrey Friday.

According to Godfrey, there are currently more than 1,300 IT contract staffers engaged through 10 contractors working in different government departments.

He estimated that the government will need an additional 200 contract IT workers.

"As one of Hong Kong's largest users of IT, the government's IT expenditure has a major impact on the healthy development of the ICT sector. Our strategy for facilitating the ICT sector is twofold," said Godfrey. "While keeping IT spending at a high level by helping departments take forward worthy projects in support of their policy and initiatives, we will continue to adopt an active outsourcing strategy to preserve jobs and assist employment in the private sector."

New scheme benefits small IT firms
The Office of the Government Chief Information Officer (OGCIO) also announced the award of 54 standing offer agreements to 26 companies for the provision of professional services to undertake IT assignments on demand under the "Standing Offer Agreement for Quality Professional Services" (SOA-QPS) scheme.

The selected contractors will provide four categories of services:
* pre-implementation and independent program/project management services;
* ongoing services;
* implementation and combined system development services; and
* information security services.

During the 48-month contract period, government departments will invite contractors to bid for various projects when needing services.

For the SOA-QPS scheme, the number of standing offer agreements has increased from 40 to 54 under the new contracts. The Government estimates that it will draw assignment-based services from these contracts costing about $858 million.

Following up on one of the recommendations by the Task Force on Economic Challenges to further develop the innovation and technology sector, the new SOA-QPS scheme has been enhanced to enable the opening up of intellectual property rights in new government IT systems where applicable, said Godfrey.

"The increase in the number of standing offer agreements will help expanding the opportunities for participation by IT contractors, including the local SMBs," he noted.