The federal government has awarded oversight of its new visa reform initiative to IT services provider Leidos Australia.
The local arm of the Virginia-based company has been appointed to the "Flexible Partner Engagement Arrangement", where it will be delivering the "provision of ICT professional services to assist in specific work packages over multiple releases".
The Department of Immigration and Border Protection -- now the Department of Home Affairs [1] -- went to tender in September, seeking a provider [2] to design, implement, and operate a new visa business for Australia.
It was revealed at the time the new visa business, labelled a matter of national security, was to be outsourced to another party that will be charged with processing visa applications.
"We are delighted to be appointed to the Flexible Partner Engagement Arrangement," Leidos Australia chief executive Christine Zeitz said. "This represents an excellent opportunity for us to assist in innovative and cost effective solutions that enable the Department of Home Affairs to achieve their mission."
According to Leidos, the department was seeking service providers with the capability and the capacity to provide "multi-skilled, security cleared, and scalable teams to deliver application development and support services".
As described in the original request for expression of interest (REOI), Bundle 1 of the visa program includes a major IT component, with the appointed vendor required to offer up a Global Digital Platform (GDP) that is a "world-class digital platform".
The GDP and supporting systems are expected to "drive the end-to-end processing and workflow of the visa and citizenship business", which includes lodgement, assessment, and rule-based decision-making on visa applications.
8.78 million visas were applied for during the 2016-17 12-month