The Australian Signals Directorate is outsourcing key elements of its landmark national security uplift program, going to market this week for industry partners to help the cyber spy agency expand beyond Canberra and add almost 2000 staff.
The Australian Signals Directorate (ASD) is looking for more than 50 personal with high level security clearance to support the REDSPICE (Resilience – Effects – Defence – Space – Intelligence – Cyber – Enablers) program.
This includes senior roles in program coordination, financials, procurement, and change management.
The Industry partners’ personnel will work alongside senior ASD staff, who will retain responsibility for the program.
REDSPICE represents a near-$10 billion, decade-long investment, in the ASD which will see it double in size and its cyber capabilities triple, with the funding mostly at the expense of existing defence programs.
The ASD is expected to use 1900 new staff to fill an expanded operational footprint outside of its headquarters in Canberra into major sites in Brisbane, Perth and Melbourne.
The agency’s head, director-general Rachel Noble, is confident ASD will fill the roles and is targeting 40 per cent of its staff operating outside of Canberra by 2027.
A REDSPICE second phase request for tender was released this week ahead of an industry briefing in Canberra on Friday.
The ASD is seeking industry partners for REDSPICE’s business management office, program management office, an integrated service delivery hub, and its transformation and strategic communications.
Most of the required personnel are for the program management office, which has responsibility for REDSPICE’s governance and secretariat function, program management fundamentals, information management, and enterprise enablement (including tools and reporting) for benefits realisation.
Consulting giant KPMG is already being paid nearly $1.2 million each month for similar work on REDSPICE delivery and governance activities.
Security clearance requirements for the REDSPICE implementation phase two start from a minimum of NV1 (SECRET) but a TOP SECRET clearance is “strongly preferred” for core personnel.
