The data used in calculating the Index is derived from AusTender, which is part of the Federal Government tender and contracting information management system.
Federal Government agencies subject to the Financial Management and Accountability Act 1997 (known as the FMA Act) are required to record details of all contracts worth more than $10,000 as part of the Department of Finance and Deregulation AusTender system.
Since 2004, Intermedium has been downloading AusTender contracts data, which it processes to produce a range of reports and market studies.
The data relating to ICT procurement is further classified by Intermedium into six broad categories and 48 sub-categories to reflect market segments.
Labour hire is a sub-category of IT services, a large volume of IT Services contracts are reported annually, by virtually all agencies. The large, consistent annual volume of contracts and their relative homogeneity allows for detailed statistical analysis.
The Index specifically measures the average cost of an average unit of labour hire providing an average unit of effort, derived by Intermedium from ICT labour hire contracts reported by Federal Government against a 2003/04 baseline.