Cost cutting is the “new reality” for the public sector.

• This is the year in which real cuts in staff and services are becoming a reality
• No significant turnaround expected for at least two years
• Citizens are in greater need themselves; therefore the strain on government staff (increases in applications for government help, greater errors on forms, etc.) is increasing rather than decreasing.
• Fewer staff members remain to handle the higher volumes of work
• “Surviving” staff members are the less experienced since the most senior staff—the “senior knowledge workers” are retiring
• Delays and errors can be expected due to the knowledge void

Services need to be more productive, cost effective, and flexible in order to react quickly to changing events. While tighter budgets make it more difficult to improve government services, viable options do exist in the areas of automation, better enterprise content management, and outsourced business processing services.