Oakton wins $4 million government deal

Australian consulting firm Oakton has won an open tender worth over $4 million with the federal Office of Fair Work Ombudsman.

A Fair Work Ombudsman spokesperson told CRN that the new system would allow clients to self-service information on “wage rates, penalty rates, allowances and various forms of leave, as well as notice of termination periods and redundancy payments”. The tool will also be used internally to answer enquiries coming in through the Fair Work Infoline.

“The government sector is very important to us,” Oakton’s ACT executive general manager Bob Peebles said. “We have a number of solutions we are selling to and working with government on.”

The consulting and integration firm will deploy Oracle Policy Automation, a client-facing custom .NET application, and document storage facilities with Microsoft SharePoint, according to the Ombudsman spokesperson.

He said that the contract was signed 26 February, with the first stage expected to be live October and the second stage marked down for March 2015.

Peebles said that new projects such as this come as a result of Oakton “having a clear position in the services supply chain” and its role as an integrator providing customers with “a complete solution”.

The Fair Work Ombudsman deal comes on the heels of a $4.8 million contract with the Attorney-General's department for Oakton to rebuild the Document Verification Service, similarly utilising .NET. Oakton has also previously serviced the Office of Fair Work Ombudsman.