NSW govt budget reveals coming IT projects

The NSW government has delivered significant new funding to bust congestion of the state's roadways and equip cops with new technology in its 2015 budget.

Treasurer Gladys Berejiklian has overseen a $2.1 billion surplus in 2014-15 and expects to keep the budget in the black for the forward estimates, helped along by the accounting changes to transport assets. 

The flagship IT initiative of Berejiklian's first budget is a $100 million 'policing for tomorrow' fund which will establish a pool of money to go towards electronic law enforcement tools.

The fund was a key government promise ahead of the March state election. Funds will become available from July 1 when the application process for the money kicks off.

However, police minister Troy Grant has already flagged that funding could go towards rolling out tablets, mobile fingerprint scanners and hand-held devices known as 'TruNarc' used to test for narcotics on the go.

"The fund will allow the NSW Police Force to put in bids for major technological advances," Grant said in a statement.

The police will also spend the bulk of its $4 million body-worn video camera allocation over the coming year, with a tender currently out to market for more than 250 of the devices.

Also out to market is the replacement of the state's primary budget management systems, including the treasury online entry system (TOES) and its capital expenditure database (CAPTOES).

The Treasury plans to spend $46.3 million of the project's total $54.3 million capital allocation in the coming 12 months.

Roads and Maritime Services received a further $15.2 million towards its predictive-analytics enabled smart roads infrastructure, on top of the $18.9 million already injected into the scheme. This adds to $9 million in new funding for the agency's real-time travel information scheme directed at Sydney motorways.

The Department of Finance and Services will receive $4.8 million to speed up the OneGov digital alignment journey, which will see service delivery agencies line up their IT back-end with Service NSW.

Finance will also spend $4.8 million over the next 12 months encouraging agencies to transition to cloud-based IT supply models, utilising the GovDC central data centres.

The state will also spend a further $74.5 million to complete the delivery of the $1.2 billion Opal card ticketing system in 2015-16.

Other newly funded initiatives include:

• $7.2 million for a data warehouse upgrade at the NSW Self Insurance Corporation
• $11.9 million for stage two of the Department of Planning and Environment's ePlanning scheme
• $11.2 million to help the Department of Finance and Services build up the IT environment within Public Works
• $12 million in 2015 for integrated road and transport operations management systems at Transport for NSW, but the project total remains confidential
• $5.2 million to the Rural Fire Service to pay for the 'Guardian' bush fire risk information management system
• $4 million for user interface enhancements to the electronic medical record across Health
• $3.7 million for a new SAP financial system at the NSW Trustee and Guardian
• $4.3 million to further shared services reform at the Department of Premier and Cabinet
• $2.7 million for phase two of a human capital management system at the Department of Finance and Services
• $300,000 to the Information and Privacy Commission for upgrades to the system the agency uses to manage GIPA requests
• $821,000 for the police to pay for a high risk rapid deployment system
• $2.8 million for a digital stakeholder management solution for the Environment Protection Authority
• $615,000 for an online booking and customer relationship management system at the Royal Botanic Gardens and Domain Trust
• $593,000 for a government organisational view database dubbed GO View
• $500,000 to update the Premier's Department's eReporting tool
• $430,000 for IT upgrades at ICAC
• $883,000 for a 'count back system' at the electoral commission, and another $1.5 million for a universal postal voting system.