Think it’s tough deciding the right digital approach for your business? The Australian public sector has got it even tougher.
Not only do they have to decide on strategy and deliver an implementation approach that robust enough to withstand the increasingly demanding critique of the Australian public, but they also have to operate within the confines of their jurisdiction.
The impact of these challenges, is that Australian government digital transformation activities have been largely fragmented. With departments and agencies focusing on their own patch.
Australian citizens get an independent assessment of each jurisdiction’s progress towards digital transformation via Intermedium’s Digital Government Readiness Indicator (DGRI) Report.
The objective of the report is to deliver each jurisdiction’s progress towards digital transformation, assessed and benchmarked against all other jurisdictions. Intermedium publishes the report because they believe that “the digital transformation of government services at federal and state level is of major significance to both the well-being of citizens and the better use of taxpayer funds. ”
The report provides insight into digital readiness across government jurisdictions. It also highlights those jurisdictions where key digital transformation enablers are not receiving enough attention.
Digital transformation in the NSW government
Having partnered with the NSW government to develop and implement Service NSW, Customer Science was very pleased to read that NSW continues to lead the way in digital transformation around Australia.
New South Wales remains in the national lead, as has been the case in every DGRI published to date. Its score of 9.7 reflects the significant level of change activity that has occurred following the March 2019 election, which gave the returned Coalition government the ability to further consolidate its customer service and digital transformation vision. This is reflected in its strong participation in the ADDC; the creation of DaPCo; the establishment of its Digital Restart Fund, and the launch of its Beyond Digital strategy.
Intermedium, Digital Government Readiness Indicator Report 2020 (pg. 7)
Digital transformation in the NSW government includes a large number of activities. But we are pleased to report that initiatives such as DaPCo and the establishment of its Digital Restart Fund will make it almost impossible for an ICT project to get funding in NSW unless it satisfies three core digital transformation tests:
- Data architecture (does it support data being shared?)
- Digital design (does it allow for citizen feedback?)
- Citizen-centric lens (for example, is there support for a ‘tell-us-once’ approach?)
Here at Customer Science we think it’s great that these lenses have taken a priority place within NSW government projects. But I guess we should, since they’re what our whole business is about!
But as the results of this years Digital Government Readiness Indicator report show, by putting data, customer and digital at the forefront of project and transformation work, you can set the benchmark amongst your peers.
A score of 9 in the report (see image below), is the threshold score for ‘digital readiness’. Once a government achieves ‘digital readiness’ it’s harder to demonstrate significant improvement. The continued focus of digital transformation in the NSW state government has seen its readiness scores increase from 9.4 in 2019 to 9.7 in 2020, which is a particularly impressive result.
More about Service NSW
In case you haven’t heard of Service NSW, it was the consolidation of hundreds of websites and phone numbers across various NSW government entities, to direct them to one central place.
Its vision is “to be recognised as the distinctive leader in the provision of government services.”
Service NSW now takes care of hundreds of services such as:
- Births, deaths and marriages
- Passports and visas
- Licensing for driving, boating, fishing
- Vehicle registrations and number plates
- Penalty notices
- Starting a business in NSW
We were so pleased to work with Service NSW on this transformation which has received such positive feedback and accolades.
In fact, it’s the Service NSW model that has been adopted by the Federal agency Services Australia, which delivers Medicare, Centrelink, Child Support payments and services from February 2020.
Service NSW and the NSW state government have really pushed the boundaries on customer service standards in Australia and the results of the 2020 Digital Government Readiness Indicator (DGRI) Report demonstrate that the effort is paying off. NSW is the new benchmark in digital government readiness.
LEARN MORE
What the NSW Government’s beyond digital strategy and The Block have in common