Public agencies wanting to be effective in a citizen-empowered world need to focus on developing key foundational strengths.
Governments and councils across Australia – at all levels – are about to embark upon a critical phase of their digital transformations. The Federal Government has laid out an ambitious goal for Australia to be one of the top three digital governments in world by 2025. This will see a major transformation in the Australian public sector, delivering smarter and easier services across all jurisdictions and in the very way government works.
The work done to date – from investing in and adopting new technologies, building better websites, moving to the cloud, and enabling more collaborative and agile workplaces – has simply been laying the groundwork for what’s to come.
In essence, it’s involved doing digital rather than being digital.
Digital government is fast becoming reality.
The federal government has committed to make Australia one of the top three digital governments by 2025. The Digital Transformation Agency has contracted with IBM to accelerate the uptake of blockchain, AI and Quantum computing.
Through a specially designed toolkit for government, The Mandarin is examining this critical next phase of transformation and the core capabilities, processes and technologies that public sector CIOs need to focus on, in order to extract the benefits for citizens of the shift to digital government.
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Those public agencies advanced in their digital endeavours are now ready to become truly digital by moving to an era of intelligent personalised services and data informed programs. This shift requires a major adoption of smart services, remade government processes, and outcome driven programs.
We are already seeing examples of this: predictive systems help identify security and border risks, applications to identify fraudulent and suspicious tax claims, and diagnostic tools to better detect disease.
However, these projects are still the exception rather than the norm. Discussing the progress made, IBM Global Government Industry lead Dr. Julia Glidden says while we have broadly digitised the status quo so far, progress is just around the corner. Here are six steps to accelerating digital government:
1. Simplify through integration and automation
The underlying forces shifting digital from something you do to becoming a state of being are neatly captured in IBM’s Centre for the Business Government “The Seven Drivers Transforming Government” study.
It involves the automated integration and use of data in the majority of processes, and will be underpinned by intelligent and secure technology platforms. In light of citizen concerns around data security, trust and transparency, this new way of work must be governed by well-considered, open, accountable, risk and benefits frameworks.
Considering the agile and collaborative work practices between public and private sectors, systems will be highly integrated and automated.
2. Be clear and committed to your strategy
IBM’s Dr Glidden argues a lesson we must draw from the many other sectors that have undergone profound digital change is a drive to provide best-of-breed program and outcomes.
This makes critical the need for a clear strategic vision for every agency – a vision that comprehends the impact of these changes and frames agency missions for the digital era.
At its most basic, digital is transforming agencies from traditional, activity- based enterprises into informational organisations, delivering a powerful set of data-led products, ranging from public transport apps to sophisticated real-time revenue collecting systems. This change into information-centric enterprise implies a very different governance regime from traditional bricks and mortar agencies.
The nature of digital means agencies have real choices what role they play – from app developers to managers of digital infrastructure – and everything in between. Just as Uber and Airbnb operate without owning any cars or homes, government agencies also have the option to play only in the virtual world. And while most public agencies remain rooted in traditional service provision and program delivery, there are now important strategic options agencies must consider.
This is where strong leadership is critical. The drive to build the basic capabilities needs to be framed around a strong agency-wide vision for its core role, and the shift to digitally-centric work practices will slumber along unless tethered to a clear all-of-agency commitment and buy in.
CIOs and their digital colleagues are uniquely placed to be major influencers in the design of the overall strategy and to develop and execute a robust delivery plan. A plan that frames success in tangible improvements in service, program and outcomes for citizens and stakeholders is key.
3. Letting technology do the heavy lifting
Dr Glidden points to the important role cognitive solutions will play in the move to digital.
“Cognitive government is how we use artificial intelligence to take the volumes of data captured to unlock insights. The desired outcome of each needs to be a fluid, ecosystem whereby agencies are constantly learning from data, improving service delivery from data, and delivering a more personalised experience.”
“How do you tap the insight? How do you stop it being static, becoming a fluid, ecosystem, constantly learning from that data, improving service delivery from that data, delivering a more personalised experience. That is what cognitive government means.”
It is important to acknowledge the context this profound change is occurring under. We know citizens are restless, untrusting of traditional institutions and empowered by their own networks and devices.
The demand for better government is universal, however, and a simple focus on getting basic life services sorted will go a long way to restoring satisfaction.
We are already seeing some rapid improvements, service bots included, driven by the big federal, state and local service agencies. And there is some impressive work in the transport, revenue collection and border gate arenas.
“How do you tap the insight? How do you stop it being static, becoming a fluid, ecosystem, constantly learning from that data, improving service delivery from that data, delivering a more personalised experience. That is what cognitive government means.”
Dr. Julia Glidden, IBM Global Government Industry lead
4. Focus on what needs fixing
Dealing with the mountain of legacy systems and program complexity remains the elephant in the room. Unsexy, back office stuff, but absolutely critical to being digital on the inside as well as outside.
Much legacy modernisation is primarily about moving to shared data infrastructure and making software-as-a-service applications the foundations of all core systems.
After two decades of legacy renewal, we have learnt that focusing on what needs fixing, rather than grand “rip-and-replace” projects, is a better strategy. IBM has brought together all these legacy learnings into a strategic set of patterns that enable CIOs to de-risk modernisation projects.
5. Ensure cyber security is front of mind
Security remains the Achilles heel of digital, which is why agencies need to be persistent in building cyber resilience into their systems. 
The pervasive nature of cyber vulnerability means agencies need partners offering depth and global perspective in managing this rapidly changing environment.
In particular, it’s an area where intelligent, self-learning computing has a critical role to play. The vast amounts of threat data and analysis mean cognitive applications can read and recommend mitigation strategies in near real-time.
6. Citizen driven personalisation
The shift to a data-driven world opens a whole arena of precision delivery of services, where each engagement is personalised to the needs of the individual. We are rapidly approaching a time when we will have the data sets and technologies to create integrated and intelligent services across multiple agencies and jurisdictions. This will enable complex tasks – such as the winding up of a deceased relatives affairs – to be consolidated into one easy-to-use service.
Dr Glidden argues this personalisation is going to be increasingly directed by the citizen. “The way to talk about it is citizen-driven services, not just government anticipating my needs but governments actually engaging with me to drive that personalisation.”
And distributed blockchain technologies are readymade for the maze of interaction between government agencies and the massive diaspora of people and organisations government will inevitably be dealing with as services are integrated across the economy.
Intelligent systems offer a real opportunity to rethink service and program design and delivery in a much more radical fashion and in a way that drives economic value. For example, the redesign of the conveyancing system by three east coast governments has turned a major cost into a valuable asset, now trading under the brand of Pexa.
Seize the opportunity of digital government
To seize the huge opportunity to transform government service and program design and delivery for the modern era requires agencies to build depth across a set of key capabilities and methodologies. These are the building blocks for digital government and provide the foundational strength for agencies looking to apply digital-like methodologies to their work.
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