myGov review a chance to overhaul tech approach

The recent audit of the myGov platform revealed it fell ‘well short’ of its promise to be Australia’s digital door to the government. High costs and lack of support and understanding were the reasons identified for government agencies not partnering with the platform to deliver services. The report called for more funding to enhance myGov.

In recent years, federal, state, territory and local governments have invested heavily in digital capabilities to deliver all manner of services, from venue check-in systems and vaccination certificates to digital drivers’ licences.

Despite this, in January 2022, only 22% of citizens said the government’s digital services were exceeding their expectations, a drop from 30% in June 2020.

While there’s no question financial allocations are essential for ICT advancement, we may be putting the cart ahead of the horse.

For Australia to experience the government’s digital services to their fullest capacity, a technologically equipped and capable public service is essential.

This has been highlighted time and again, for instance in the Bushfire Royal Commission’s 80 recommendations to government which called for shared technologies between departments and consistent data standards to measure impact.

According to ManageEngine’s recent survey, however, 83% of public service respondents from Australia and New Zealand (A/NZ) said they were being held back from IT innovation by their organisational leaders.

Further, 73% of public sector leaders identified the main roadblock when it comes to adopting new technologies as the fact employees aren’t used to using the tools.

This inertia is reflected in the fact that more than half of Australia’s local councils have a digital transformation vision but are still in the early stages of its execution, according to the 2022 Local Government Digital Transformation Index.

A citizen-focused experience means balancing internal and external investments with modernisation and systematic data sharing across levels of government, according to Dean Lacheca, a senior director at Gartner.

Perhaps throwing more money at the problem isn’t the only solution to improving citizen services, and rather we should focus first on encouraging a culture of technological aptitude and connectedness from the inside.

Long-term view to a digital future

To begin nurturing this environment, public sector leaders should ensure digital skills traverse their teams.

Centralised IT teams are already under-resourced due to skills shortages and budget cuts, and while they can handle high-level tasks such as systems deployment, other departments should be armed with the knowledge to address business-driven needs as they arise.

This is especially urgent as 67% of ANZ public sector respondents said a lack of technical training would cause them to resign from their current job, and one-third of respondents were already actively looking for a new job.

The battle against cybercrime, in particular, should be an all-hands-on-deck endeavour, as every device, employee and customer touchpoint is a potential entry point for criminals.

We’ve already seen high-profile breaches in the public sector, such as the recent ransomware attack on a Department of Defence communications platform.

Adding to this is the fact the ManageEngine survey found 83% of ANZ public service respondents said their organisation needs to change to be protected against cyber attacks, representing the highest figure of all industries surveyed. Education around cyber sanitation is a department-wide imperative.

A large portion of the public sector transitioned to flexible work during the pandemic, and given Australians’ preference for this set-up, staff should be empowered to work reliably across locations in a way that suits their life.

This should not necessitate several, separate applications for every task and process, which results in application overload and burnout, and often results in the use of unsophisticated workarounds for staff to get their jobs done.

As well as knowledge and potential training material exchanged through these platforms leaving the organisation when the employee does, this can result in unintentional compliance breaches.

Staff should also leverage the power of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to improve their working lives. Rather than viewing them as a usurping force, employees should be using these technologies to assume repetitive, time-consuming administrative tasks, and funnel the time saved into developing themselves professionally.

These technologies are already being used to determine overcrowding on Sydney train platforms and warn passengers. Further, it’s looking like AI chatbot ChatGPT is the fastest-growing application in history.

The reality is that a failure to capitalise on the efficiencies of AI over the next two years will see dissenting organisations fall significantly behind.

The digital advancement of the public service is a national imperative — not only to ensure Australians have uninterrupted access to subsidised healthcare and welfare payments, but to protect our national security and ensure we can battle through unpredictable events.

Rather than focusing solely outward, we need to remove technology bottlenecks inside government agencies, so workers have access to the tools and knowledge to improve individual outcomes and contribute to a better Australia.

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