Services Australia has bought over 35,000 laptops and monitors since the COVID-19 outbreak began.

Canberra’s largest service delivery agency purchased almost 20,000 laptops and more than 15,000 monitors since the pandemic forced staff to into home-based work.

In recent days Services Australia signed off on more contracts for new hardware devices at a combined cost of $19.2 million.

The deal includes around 6,300 Microsoft Surface Pro notebooks and 1000 Surface Pro notebooks.

Dell Australia has been contracted to provide a further 1,100 Microsoft notebook PCs and 2,200 computer monitors.

“The hardware … upgrades have been procured to meet a range of requirements, including mobility, asset replacement, growth, and business continuity,” a department spokesperson has told reporters.

The agency’s usual staff level is about 27,000 workers, but its numbers have swelled with ‘surge’ staff brought into Services Australia from other agencies across the Australian Public Sector.