Published on the 29/01/2015 | Written by Beverley Head
Australia will establish a Digital Transformation Office (DTO) under the stewardship of communications minister Malcolm Turnbull, but the devil still lurks in the detail…
In a bid to accelerate the delivery of digital government services and stamp out departmental silos, the Government has announced a DTO will be set up comprising a small team of developers, designers, researchers and content specialists to co-ordinate the delivery of digital services to Australian citizens and businesses.
According to a joint statement issued by Minister Turnbull and Prime Minister Abbott, one of the first tasks will be to establish a single “digital identity” which can be used as a single sign-on for all government services.
The intent is that better digital services will mean that, “fewer people will need to come into a shopfront or make a phone call”.
The DTO has been “established to deliver digital by default and make services simpler”.
While it’s a noble intent, the journey to actually making the plan a reality could be fraught, and it’s not yet clear exactly how Agimo and the DTO will work together. The current plan suggests that Agimo and the Department of Finance will be responsible for ICT Procurement, while the DTO will be responsible for “investing in ICT relating to digital service delivery”.
Exactly how the two can be sensibly separated hasn’t been made clear, nor has the role of the Government’s chief technology officer, John Sheridan, been explicitly spelled out.
While the intent to get rid of agency silos and ensure that all departments are on the same page with regard to digital service delivery seems sound, the danger is that another layer of bureaucracy could emerge in Government with agency CIOs in the future taking direction from the DTO and expected to operate within the framework that it establishes while Agimo maintains its IT procurement role.
According to Malcolm Turnbull’s office: “The DTO has not been established to simply tell agencies what to do, but to work collaboratively with agencies and to provide them with deep expertise as agencies transition to digital to improve the user experience.”
While “the DTO will not say ‘no’ without providing an alternative or working with agencies to develop an alternative” it notes that the head of the DTO will have ultimate say and “be responsible for resolving all significant disputes between agencies relating to digital, including investment decisions in common platforms”.
