However he could not give an approximate figure or proportion of the 5000 government IT staff members that would remain in the $7.4 billion IT service provided by government. "We are going to have to make a business decision on a case by case basis on how we move to IT as a service," he said. "And it is only as we make each of those decisions that we will be able to make those determinations." "The government's policy is certainly towards acquiring IT as a service and that means jobs from the private sector providing that service." He explained the government's position by saying the IT audit had accepted the three broad principles of the Costello Commission of Audit of the state’s finances.

"That means to move away from running our own IT services to one in which we acquire our IT as a service," Mr Walker said. The change will include freeing government departments from having to use the government's shared services division and allowing contracts from the private sector. CITEC must be totally outsourced within two years. The outsourcing is in response to an audit of the government's ICT systems. Labor's spokesman on information communications technology Tim Mulherin said the release of the report showed a further 5000 workers’ jobs were in doubt.

“In a week where he’s added $600 to household bills and massively hiked taxes, now it seems he’s going to sack more workers,’’ he said. Mr Mulherin questioned whether the IT positions now in doubt were identified in last year's budget, which outlined redundancies in each department. “Before the election, [Premier] Campbell Newman told workers they were safe, then he sacked 14,000 of them,’’ he said. “After sacking 14,000 workers, he then said there’d be no more job losses. “Now another 5,000 are on the chopping block.’’

Mr Walker said the government would adopt almost all of the IT audit report's 60 recommendations. Savings have also been identified.



These include $9 million from cancelling mobile phone and fixed phone services that are no longer needed. Shifting services to be delivered only by Internet could save up to $20 million per year, while shifting to a ‘‘cloud’’ based email service could save up to $17 million a year. Decommissioning old computer systems could save $10 million a year, while moving away from the outdated Travel Management System could save $9 million. Consolidating the number of printers could save $3 million and better using mobile data plans could save $4 million.