NSW government's minister for finance and services, Dominic Perrottet.
NSW minister for finance and services, Dominic Perrottet, laid out his vision for the state’s service delivery, while speaking at Fujitsu’s World Tour, in Sydney’s Sheraton on the Park,
The conclusion? Government has traditionally been lacking.
“The biggest problem with the digital age is that it’s here – but government is not.”
Part of the major problems Australia’s various levels of government face is a substantial investment in legacy hardware and software, often of proprietary design, and a massive duplication of resources.
Government, by its very nature, often operates in silos. In 2012, the NSW government chartered ‘a new and bold course’ as part of its 2012 ICT Strategy, which saw it boost its ICT spend to $2 billion.
“The government understands that in order to put customers first, we need to take advantage of a few new digital technologies, new approaches and innovative thinking,” he said.
“Some people think that its all about having the latest and greatest technology – I disagree with that. I am quite agnostic when it comes to technology.”
NSW government has already made Cloud the preferred approach to any new technology based initiatives, similar to other state governments.
“This policy requires agencies to evaluate ‘as-a-service’ when considering any ICT solution. This goes hand in hand with our datacentre reform program, GovtDC. This means that industry can now provide Cloud solutions, directly to government, in the datacentres.”
The government is also reforming its procurement process, so that the cost of ICT services has been greatly reduced.
Overcoming existing bureaucracy has also been a problem – especially when attempting to develop a customer centric focus.
Perrottet said that there are currently 380 government owned shopfronts, 100 call centres, with over 8000 different phone numbers. Finally, there are more than 1000 different websites.
“They want a way to interact with government that is easy, and available 24/7, like they do with their bank, their insurance company, and their ISP.”
Service NSW now means that citizens can access more than 850 transactions online, including seniors cards and drivers licenses. Perrottet expects the number of transactions through Service NSW to increase by 75 per cent over the next 10 years.
He boasts the site has a 98 per cent satisfaction rate: “It’s rare in government and something we’re proud of.”
“Our citizens have gone mobile, they want government in the palms of their hands, and that’s where we need to be too.”
25 of our licenses from 6 agencies have been simplified and are now available from the services NSW website. More than 800,000 NSW government licenses were renewed last year.
"More than 200,000 people will benefit from the new mobile service in its first year alone.”
Perrottet also wants to see digital take hold via data analytics, and better use of government data. NSW will be looking at opening up more datasets to build value, and produce better services.
“Innovation will come by better engagement and partnering with the private sector,” he said.
“This relationship with Fujitsu will only grow stronger in the future.”
