Home > Outsourced services

Outsourcing refers to an arrangement whereby an APS agency has a function or service, which was previously undertaken in-house, performed by a private sector provider. Outsourcing usually involves market testing through a competitive tendering and contracting process. Under these outsourced arrangements the APS agency retains overall responsibility and accountability for the function or service.

In its response in 2001 to the report by Richard Humphry AO Review of whole of government information technology outsourcing initiative, the Government decided that progress with implementation of ICT outsourcing would be monitored and reported annually by the PS Commissioner in the State of the Service report. In accordance with the Government’s decision, the APS Commission continues to ask questions of agencies about the implementation of ICT outsourcing and to report on those results. This year’s agency survey also included questions on the outsourcing of HR services as well as agencies’ experiences of ICT and HR insourcing.¹

In responding to the agency survey, agencies were asked to report only on outsourced contracts worth more than $100,000. Agency responses identifying contracts worth less than this amount were disregarded for the sake of consistency.

1 ‘Insourcing’ occurs when an agency brings a function or service that was previously contracted out back into the agency.