Government agencies across Australia are bringing around AU$49 million (US$32.32m) of technology services back in-house.

As reported by iTNews, the government is making an effort to bring "core work" back in-house and reduce the reliance on contractors in 2024-2025.

These efforts are part of Kinance Minister Katy Gallagher's push to phase out contractors in the Australian Public Service as part of the Strategy Commissioning Framework which commenced in October 2023.

Public service agencies were required to identify their core work and set targets to bring it in-house. According to the Framework report, 67 departments and agencies considered ICT and digital as core systems, and 55 of them currently outsourced at least some of it.

In total, AU$527 million of core work will be moved back to government agencies' hands, and around 22 percent accounts for ICT and digital work - the largest of any "job family," others include portfolio program and project management, service delivery, accounting and finance, data and research, legal and parliamentary, and "other."

An exception to this is in the Defence Department, which is contributing to $308 million of this reduction, but will still have around a 60:40 ratio of staff to contractors, according to an iTNews podcast episode with Defence CIO Chris Crozier.

The report notes that the DoD was "unable to provide a dollar breakdown by job family."

Minister Gallagher said: "This update shows the public service has set a target for more than $527 million worth of work to be brought back in-house in 2024-25.

“This supports the public service’s work to achieve the $4 billion in savings from reducing spending on consultants, contractors, and labor hire that the Government has delivered since the election.”