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The Australian Government Information Management Office Archive

Better Services, Better Government

The Task Ahead

Shared commitment, collaboration and agreed standards between agencies are the keys to successfully achieving the six objectives of e-government. This means collaboration among agencies on how information and services are presented, how business systems are developed and deployed, and how elements of e-government are planned and managed.

The newly established Information Management Strategy Committee (IMSC) of Secretaries and CEOs from key departments and agencies will provide shared leadership on multi-agency and whole-of-government information management strategies. It will oversee the development of policies, standards, specifications and guidelines for ICT, to support future interoperability as well as individual business solutions for agencies. As a leadership group, the IMSC will use its influence to leverage support for its approaches.

Reporting to the IMSC, the Chief Information Officer (CIO) Committee will identify strategic issues, address issues referred by IMSC and develop options for adoption and implementation of ICT at agency or whole-of-government level. This will include developing strategic architectures, standards and proposals for shared services. Through working groups, it will address specific issues and promote research and development, and knowledge sharing.

Collaboration across Australian jurisdictions is fostered through the operation of the Online Council. It is the peak ministerial forum across federal, state and local governments for consultation and coordination on the information economy.

Achieve greater efficiency and a return on investment

Improving efficiency

The efficiency gains of 'real time' interaction with government are far reaching. For example, a growing number of forms are being filled in online, saving business (in particular, small business) time and money. The extensive use of the Business Entry Point website also demonstrates that the business community recognises the benefits of government services delivered through the Internet. For example, over 40 per cent of the traffic to the Business Entry Point occurs outside normal working hours and at weekends.

The popularity of innovative government services, such as the Australian Taxation Office's electronic income tax return lodgement facility (e-tax), is another clear example of Australians embracing online services.

Paying tax online

e-tax is the secure way to lodge yearly income tax return over the Internet. It uses the latest encryption and digital certificate technology to ensure the security and authenticity of information sent to the ATO.

e-tax facts:

• By early November, more than 540 000 people had lodged their 2002 return using e-tax%u2014already a 52 per cent increase on total lodgements last year;
• the ATO is processing almost 100 per cent of e-tax returns within 14 days with nearly 90 per cent processed within 10 days; this compares to a standard time of 42 days for paper income tax returns;
• the busiest time for e-tax downloads and lodgements is around 6pm to 10pm (ie outside of normal business hours); and
• an online survey of e-tax users shows that 94 per cent say they will use it again in 2003.
• the survey also shows that 56 per cent of e-tax users have not used e-tax previously.

www.etax.ato.gov.au

Assessing return on investment

As with existing service delivery channels, it is essential that the costs and benefits of online services be measured. The direct costs are relatively easy to identify. However, benefits may flow in different ways and at different times. For example, a benefit may flow to businesses through a reduction in time needed to comply with government red tape, rather than back to the funding agency.

The measurement of benefits may involve a broad range of methodologies, such as the internal rate of return on investment, cost and benefit analysis and economic modelling of broader impacts.

There are clear benefits to be realised from a restructuring of the business processes of government. For example, the arrangements under the Job Network, underpinned by an e-business system, allow the contracted Job Network providers to deliver an improved service at a saving of approximately $200 million annually over the former Commonwealth Employment Service network.

There are short-term cost issues associated with upfront investment required for online service delivery for federal agencies, particularly as they maintain multiple delivery channels. However, as more Australians take advantage of operating online when dealing with government costs are expected to fall. Assessing return on investment needs to take a multi-channel and multi-year approach.

The identification of significant issues related to investment in shared ICT infrastructure has been identified as part of an initial agenda for future strategic work by the IMSC.

Ensure convenient access to government services and information

Managing multiple delivery channels

One challenge of handling multiple delivery channels is coordinating integrated services across a range of technologies. This is not unique to government. Broadcasters and banks, for example, face similar issues. In fact many service industries are dealing with this fundamental 'convergence' change.

The federal government's initial approach to online service delivery has been similar to that of the corporate sector - a simple and direct translation of the existing activities that readily lend themselves to the online medium. Online delivery of programs, services and information must now be considered a mainstream service delivery channel. The online channel can no longer be an add-on, or an after-thought.

Critical to this is a recognition that 'online' cannot merely be 'overlaid' on existing service delivery channels. The online channel is not merely a channel for information and service delivery. It is a key driver of new approaches to information management that enables the integration of information and services.

The availability and increasing ease of use of the online channel creates the opportunity for existing service delivery processes to be rethought and remodelled. This is critical if efficiency objectives for government are to be realised. The alternative is merely to add another delivery channel and incur the additional cost.

Developing the next generation of discovery tools

Continuing the development of better 'discovery tools' represents a key commitment by the Australian Government, like other leading e-government nations, to deliver on the objective of convenient access to information and services for citizens.

There are a number of approaches to achieving convenient access, including presenting information and services by customer and subject groupings, audience, service type, region and life events. Australia.gov.au and other 'portal' websites are the first stage of bringing together information and services in logical groupings irrespective of which different agencies are involved. They represent the 'front end' of service delivery (or what citizens encounter as they search for a service).

Deliver services that are responsive to client needs

Establishing the basis for interoperable services

An agreed interoperability framework will enhance the capabilities of agencies to bundle related transactional services into integrated services that are responsive to client needs.

A high level of interoperability allows government and business processes to be undertaken between agencies and across sectors. This streamlines information management processes, reduces operational costs, and enables collaboration in other areas such as procurement and supply-chain management.

Through interoperability, agencies can combine disparate services and provide them as a single service from the citizen's perspective.

By supporting seamless public and private sector electronic delivery, and by reducing the need for SMEs to invest in multiple systems, interoperability promotes early realisation of the benefits that the online environment offers and delivers broad economic efficiencies.

Integrate related services

Building a common service delivery architecture and its governance

Architecture principles and standards operate to encourage the use of ICT to support business processes. They are a crucial foundation for delivering integrated services. For example, the standards that are set as a part of the network architecture will define the technologies to enable connections between government agencies and out to citizens and business. They may consist of facility designs, communication network components and protocols. Already there is cooperation among agencies in this area.

Applications can be designed, acquired, developed, or enhanced to enable data to be transferred and processes to be integrated with appropriate stakeholders. When designing applications or components of applications, flexibility now needs to be considered and the underlying technology infrastructure and applications should be scalable in size, capacity, and functionality to meet changing business and technical requirements. These collaborative efforts avoid unnecessary and expensive duplication.

The identification of significant issues related to investment in, and governance of, shared ICT infrastructure has been identified as part of an initial agenda for future strategic work by the IMSC. This agenda includes the development of a proposal for a new action plan for integrated service delivery, with an action and investment plan, for consideration by government.

Establishing governance structures to promote client responsiveness

Successful citizen-focused e-government depends on the ability to be responsive to community needs. In turn, this depends on governance structures attuned to how different groups of users react to service delivery initiatives. Many agencies already are working to foster a greater citizen focus. This requires a detailed understanding of the needs of each client segment and mechanisms to capture the reactions of clients%u2014so that they can influence the direction of future e-government initiatives.

While it is important to gain an overall impression of how people react to e-government, experience in both the federal and state/territory governments indicates that detailed feedback is better achieved in response to particular initiatives, and is best gathered by targeting client groups.

An important first step to improving citizen focus is australia.gov.au and its associated subsidiary portal websites. Each portal is managed by a consortium of agencies, which work to meet the needs of the particular client segments for that portal. Each consortium therefore is best placed to introduce a detailed, client-focused approach to getting deeper and regular feedback from clients of e-government, and to respond to their concerns.

Developing an investment strategy

In the development of any whole-of-government infrastructure, the issue of future investment strategies must be considered. The development of client-focused services that cut across several agencies and are delivered through a common system will depend on a clear understanding of who pays, how the benefits are derived and/or distributed, and what period the investment is expected to cover.

More sophisticated service delivery may be difficult to progress without a coherent cross-agency investment strategy. More sophisticated online services can be funded through the expected business gains and efficiencies that can be achieved by replacing traditional service delivery channels, or through re-engineered back-end systems. However, the sources of such business gains are often uncertain and return on investment periods may be too long. The costs and benefits may also fall unevenly across different sponsors and recipients.

Investing up-front in innovative or higher-risk projects and funding cross-agency networks can be difficult under the existing budgetary system. In the current environment it is difficult to allocate funding for whole-of-government infrastructure projects.

Funding for ICT is currently provided on an agency-by-agency basis. This can add complexity to funding of common or shared infrastructure. The return on such investment does not always accrue to the spending agency. In other words, costs and benefits are not always aligned with the investor, and the timeframe for the return may be different.

Through the IMSC, the Government is reviewing these issues to remove any obstacles to an ICT investment strategy which addresses shared outcomes and outputs and shared investment, where appropriate.

Build user trust and confidence

Promoting confidence through website standards

The Government Online Strategy emphasised minimum standards and enablers for online information and services, since they are the building blocks for developing sophisticated online service delivery.

These standards and enablers remain relevant today. NOIE will continue to work with key agencies to promote good practice in implementing website standards and enablers across the Australian Public Service.

Agencies have made huge strides in implementing the various website standards (designed to maximise user confidence) and enablers (designed to maximise ease of use) for government online services.

Metadata

One of the success stories in this area is the inclusion of appropriate metadata on federal government Internet sites. The Australian Government Locator Service standard (AGLS) has been endorsed by all Australian governments and will be issued as a national standard by Standards Australia in late 2002. The use of the AGLS by agencies across jurisdictions has led to increased discoverability and hence access to relevant information by consumers and agencies.

What is metadata and why is it important?

Metadata can be defined as structured information created specifically to describe another form of data. It provides basic information such as the author of a work, the date of creation, description, key words, and links to related works. Metadata facilitates both the discovery and use of an agency's resources on the Internet. A simple way of describing metadata is to compare it to the card catalogues that libraries use to locate books. The adoption of a standard, the AGLS, across Australian jurisdictions means the discoverability of information is enhanced through the use of common metadata fields. To expand the library card catalogue example - all the cards in all the libraries would be the same basic format, so a user would have little trouble finding the book or information that they require, which ever library it resided in.

An October 2001 NOIE survey shows that:

• 89 per cent of federal agencies have analysed their resources for metadata tagging, the remaining 11 per cent are well on their way to completion; and
• Over three-quarters of agencies (77 per cent) have applied metadata to more than 70 per cent of their relevant resources. Of these, half have all of their resources retrievable. These percentages have both increased by approximately 15 per cent since March 2001.

The use of metadata is crucial to ensure easy widespread access to government information and services, either through portal websites or through commercial search engines.

Accessibility

Another important standard for government websites is accessibility. Agencies have made significant strides towards ensuring that their website content is accessible to all members of the community who can access the Internet. The aim has been to make sure that no one is disadvantaged by the format in which websites are displayed.

Authentication

Authentication assures the identity of the sender and receiver of online information, thereby building trust, security and confidence in conducting transactions online. The Government has made significant progress in electronic identification of businesses dealing with government through the Internet.

For electronic service delivery to move forward, there must also be practical and effective arrangements for ensuring the identity of individuals, which respect the existing privacy legislation in Australia. This means reviewing and standardising current methods of ensuring identity and, where necessary, developing whole-of-government procedures.

A more robust system of authentication (that gives assurance of identity for both the sender and receiver of information) underpins future growth in online services and transactions by enhancing security and privacy for individuals.

Authentication of clients has been identified as being part of the initial agenda for future strategic work by the IMSC.

E-permanence

An important group of standards relate to the record keeping aspects of e-government activities. These ensure legal compliance and accountability for agencies as well as corporate memory and efficiency. The standards and guidelines for e-permanence that agencies must comply with are maintained by the National Archives of Australia (NAA).

Enhance closer citizen engagement

The Internet offers a tremendous opportunity for federal agencies to improve their reach when consulting with the community on policy issues. Broadly this is termed 'e-democracy' or online citizen engagement. There are two separate streams of activity associated with online citizen engagement at the federal level.

The first is how Parliament maximises its use of the Internet to engage with citizens, including parliamentarians' interaction with constituents, parliamentary use of the Internet, and electronic and Internet voting. The second activity stream focuses on public administration, viz how government agencies can use the Internet to optimal effect when engaging and consulting with citizens.

This strategy's focus is on the public policy and administration aspects of e-democracy, with work in this area mirroring developments taking shape in other jurisdictions.

Online citizen engagement enables a strengthening of the relationship between government and citizens and contributes to improved government decision-making, through consultation and feedback. As with other e-government initiatives, online citizen engagement needs to be an integral part of agencies' day-to-day business in order to be effective.

Federal agencies regularly consult with their stakeholders (representative groups, peak bodies, academics, and the community), and many have developed their own consultation practices and protocols using existing federal guidelines (eg. service charters, regulation impact statements).

There have already been some instances of federal agencies using online consultation. As online consultation becomes a more common tool for government agencies, a workable and consistent approach to facilitating online citizen engagement in the Australian Public Service will be required.