Govt releases Digital Transformation Strategy

The federal government has unveiled a new Digital Transformation Strategy aimed at ensuring all government services are available digitally by 2025.

The new strategy was developed by the Digital Transformation Agency in consultation with peak bodies and industry representatives.

It was announced by Minister for Human Services and Digital Transformation Michael Keenan during a presentation at the National Press Club in Canberra this week.

The strategy sets out three priorities for the digitalisation of government service delivery, based on the principles that government should be easier to deal with, informed by the users of government services and fit for the digital age.

Keenan said that Australia is already consistently ranked as one of the top digital governments in international comparisons, and in July was ranked second in the UN’s e-government survey. The new digital transformation strategy aims to ensure that Australia remains one of the world’s top three digital governments through to 2025.

“As part of the Digital Transformation Strategy, we are revolutionising how we deliver our services. Our new approach is to design services that respond to common life events — like having a baby or starting a new job,” he said.

“This is a big change from the way we do things now, where a member of the public has to go to any number of government departments, online or community groups to find information and services. We currently organise government around our imperatives and needs, but in the future we will organise it around yours.”

Another priority involves the development of fully personalised digital assistants that can communicate with users in their language, understand their needs and point them to the right government services.

The strategy also seeks to enable government to harness the power of data it holds on individuals and businesses as a force for good, while maintaining personal privacy and security, Keenan said.

“We can use [data] to improve the efficiency of government spending and deliver more effective and better targeted government policies and services,” he said.

The recently formed Australian Digital Council and the planned National Data Advisory Council will be key to enabling both goals.

The strategy itself is supported by a comprehensive roadmap outlining the government’s planned digital initiatives aimed at helping achieve its goals.

Ultimately, Keenan said, the government envisions a future where “government services will be so easy and so seamless that ... there will be many tasks that have disappeared so completely from our lives, we will have nearly forgotten it took us effort to do them”.

Image credit: ©iStockphoto.com/Luis Pedrosa

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