WA's ICT policy marks a new beginning

Industry observers are responding positively to the long-awaited launch of a formal ICT strategy for the government of Western Australia (WA), where a long-running lack of technology guidance has left the state far behind its peers on key project-delivery metrics and transformation initiatives.

Called Digital WA, the strategy outlines a broad agenda around ICT that includes among its core tenets:

• a transition to cloud services;
• a commitment to use data and analytics to feed front-line staff and decision-makers’ policy directions;
• simplification and integration of government ICT systems; and
• a running directive to explore ICT-enabled digital services transformation where possible.

Digital WA represents the state’s first whole-of-government ICT strategy — a marked change from previous approaches that were heavily localised and largely disunified.

Government agencies are now expected to coordinate ICT planning and execution through the centralised Office of the Government Chief Information Officer (GCIO) and to work with other public-sector agencies where there are opportunities to leverage economies of scale.

Formalisation of the policy is a “great change and a turnaround” that is long overdue, said Cheryl Robertson, council chair of the Australian Information Industry Association’s (AIIA’s) WA arm. “It has been a big challenge for the government to actually pull this together,” she told GTR.

“We have gone from not a lot of strategy or policy, to a lot of work being done in a very short time frame,” she continued, crediting the mid-2015 establishment of the GCIO’s office and the appointment of Giles Nunis, former deputy director-general of WA’s Department of State Development, with kickstarting the development of the policy.

Nunis was brought aboard in the wake of an ICT overhaul driven by a report from the state’s Economic Regulation Authority that questioned the effectiveness of the state’s former Shared Corporate Services project.

Since then, a patchwork of ICT deals — including a 21-agency deal for cloud and on-premises services from TechnologyOne — has typified ICT procurement in the state.

More recently, a review by the WA Office of the Auditor-General identified “extreme or high” issues with password management and other security practices.

The WA Parliament House subsequently suffered a malware attack that caused the shutdown of key communications networks.

Developing Digital WA

Digital WA is “a map to guide the public sector in seizing the opportunities provided by new technologies”, Nunis wrote in introducing the policy. “Strategic decisions about technology will focus less on hardware and software, and more on how to deliver government services in a global and fast-changing environment.

“The audience for this strategy is therefore broader than only those managing and delivering ICT services within an agency. The entire public sector needs to develop and mature the capabilities required to turn government into digital government... Creating a Digital WA is not something the public sector can do alone, but only with the support and engagement of business, industry and the wider community.”

Robertson lauded the role of the GCIO in realigning ICT policy in the state, noting that it has given the industry “somewhere to actually go and discuss the issues that we’ve seen in the past, and how we can actually get to a new position. It’s starting to really look at solutions and business outcomes as opposed to just buying nuts and bolts” as in the past.

Greater industry collaboration through the genesis of the policy “has been quite significant” for industry by driving government strategists to proactively engage suppliers of technologies and services to work together on problem-solving, Robertson added.

“Technology is now the enabler for business change and efficiency, and government is right up there with everyone else in needing efficiency from a cost perspective,” she said. “The industry has been asked for feedback all the way through and we have been pleased and excited that this is the case. The industry now feels that we are part of a bigger plan — and that is what will make it successful.”

More consultation needed

The launch of Digital WA comes on the heels of similar policy renewal in New South Wales — which launched its updated Digital+ 2016 strategy in December on the heels of a damning Audit Office review.

Victoria also has recently launched a data-heavy Information Technology Strategy in the wake of an even more problematic appraisal of its previous ICT performance.

The Victorian initiatives include the launch of a data agency tasked with improving inter-agency data sharing, as well as improvements in ICT project delivery, procurement practices and expertise through initiatives such as a public dashboard listing ICT projects over $1 million.

Western Australia’s decision to join the state-level ICT-strategy reinvention reflects the growing recognition that government agencies need to stop being so prescriptive about ICT strategy and become more consultative — between departments and with their peers in other states — instead.

“Government is now a team-based sport,” AIIA CEO Rob Fitzpatrick said, noting “increasing pressures” on state governments that will push them to new levels of collaboration.

Over time, he added, individual states may take the lead in individual areas and share their learnings to enabled faster decision-making and more agile project delivery.

“All of these core services need to be delivered by governments but we don’t need to reinvent them at every place,” Fitzpatrick said. “We don’t need to get everything right; we just need to get it all less wrong.”

Image courtesy Marko Mikkonen under CC