Gregg Kreizman, research director for the public sector at Gartner, says that with regard to governments` IT shops, there is always a pendulum swing in different parts of the world as to whether or not better efficiencies can be gained through the centralisation of IT. But what influences this decision? "In one breath, outsourcing makes sense, since it allows governing bodies to get a better handle on where capital is being spent and there`s a big push in government, as with the whole industry, towards getting more bang for the buck.

"Appointing a central agency makes sense from the perspective that government departments are generally islands of information, and integrating processes and applications so that information can be used across multiple departments is difficult. The counter-argument, however, is that centralisation often constitutes a loss of flexibility, as the appointment of a central agency means that the `bigger picture priorities` are treated with more urgency. And as a result of this, getting the buy-in of the smaller agencies with limited budgets is also difficult, since they often have a strong perception that their limited capital will be swallowed up in the costs of bigger projects, with little personal benefit to them.