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Senate Estimates opening statement — October 2018
Senate Estimates opening statement —
October 2018
22 October 2018
Tags:
Digital transformation (/taxonomy/term/239)
This opening statement was tabled by our Chief Executive Officer Randall Brugeaud at Senate
Estimates on 23 October 2018.
Thank you Chair. I’d like to offer a brief opening statement.
I’ve been DTA CEO for almost four months now. While it’s clearly challenging, I’m thoroughly
enjoying the role and am passionate about the work we do.
The DTA continues to focus on improving the way Australians access government services; to
make them simple, clear and fast.
The DTA delivers a broad range of services, but we are progressively increasing our focus on
delivery. Our four strategic priorities for 2018–19 are:
to deliver a whole-of-government Digital Transformation Strategy and Roadmap
to deliver a digital capability improvement program, including procurement reform
to deliver whole-of-government digital platforms, including digital identity
to deliver investment advice, and whole-of-government portfolio oversight on ICT and
digital investments
I’ll provide a brief update on our progress against each of these priorities.
Technology is fundamentally changing the way we live and work. Australians rightly expect us
to respond to these changes.
While Australia can be proud of being consistently ranked as a digital leader in a global
context, there are a number of areas where improvement is required. We are learning from
countries like Estonia and Denmark, where digital government services are ubiquitous.
By the end of this year, government will release a strategy to deliver world-leading digital
services for all Australians. Our Digital Transformation Strategy and Roadmap look forward to
2025.
Our strategy describes our vision for digital transformation in government. It has been
developed in close collaboration with our colleagues across government as well as our industry
partners. It has also included public consultation which has helped to shape the strategy and
roadmap and inform our implementation planning.
Our second priority is a digital capability improvement program, including procurement
reform.
To enable and accelerate our digital transformation agenda, we are working hard to improve
digital capability. This presents a range of challenges, most of which are not unique to
government. Our strategic response is a three-part strategy; to build, to borrow and to buy
capability.
We are building digital capability by providing guidance, tools, training and mentoring. We
also coordinate digital entry level programs.
We are borrowing digital capability from APS agencies, academia and the private sector. We
have some incredibly talented people here in Australia, but we need to do better when it
comes to sharing them.
We are also buying capability, but we need to drive improvements in the sourcing of digital
products and services to achieve better value, increase flexibility and competition and improve
access. We are making it simpler for industry to sell relevant capabilities to government and for
governments to buy relevant capabilities from industry.
Our Digital Marketplace recently hit the 1,000 opportunity milestone. Almost $279 million
worth of contracts have been awarded, with three quarters of these going to small and
medium enterprises, or SMEs. We are also working with the big end of town, negotiating
whole-of-government deals with companies such as SAP, Microsoft and most recently, IBM.
Our third priority is the delivery of whole-of-government digital platforms.
Platforms will make it faster and simpler to deliver digital services. They will improve efficiency,
reduce costs and most importantly, improve the end-user experience. The DTA is leading the
delivery of platforms such as Digital Identity, Notifications and Tell us Once and delivering
improvements to myGov.
Digital Identity will be critical. It will provide a simple, secure capability for people to access
government and potentially non-government services online. It will be opt-in. The use of
digital identity will be governed by the Trusted Digital Identity Framework. We have been, and
will continue to engage with security, identity and privacy experts to ensure that digital identity
is a safe, secure and reliable way of accessing government services.
We will begin rolling out digital identity pilots over the coming weeks. These pilots will allow us
to test, iterate and improve systems before they are released. The first pilot will allow people to
acquire a government-issued digital identity and a Tax File Number entirely online. This will
reduce a month-long, partly analogue process to a less than 30 minute, fully digital process.
Our final priority is the delivery of ICT and digital investment advice and portfolio oversight.
The DTA collects information on government initiatives with an ICT or digital spend over $10
million. We do this bi-monthly, monitoring progress and providing government with a
comprehensive view of its ICT and digital investments. The DTA is currently monitoring 63
projects and works with owning agencies, to offer advice and support where it provides the
greatest value. Agencies remain accountable for their own initiatives however.
While I acknowledge that there have been a number of well-publicised ICT project failures over
the last few years, the DTA has helped and will continue to help agencies with their ICT and
digital programs. While working with the ABS, I was a grateful recipient of support from the
DTA for the highly successful Australian Marriage Law Postal Survey. More recently, the DTA has
provided support to the ABS for the Census 2021 program, the Bureau of Meteorology for
their Robust Program and Department of Jobs and Small Business for their Employment 2020
Project to name just a few.
Senators, I thank you for the opportunity to walk you through our current priorities and share
some of the elements of our digital transformation agenda. We have a lot of work to do, but
I’m optimistic about what lies ahead.
We look forward to taking your questions.
For media enquiries email us at xxxxx@xxx.xxx.xx (mailto:xxxxx@xxx.xxx.xx)
For other enquiries email us at
xxxx@xxx.xxx.xx (mailto:xxxx@xxx.xxx.xx)
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