e-Government Strategy 2006

After a three year wait, the Australian Government has today released its latest e-Government framework, entitled "Responsive Government, A New Service Agenda".

This new strategy aims to increase community-centred e-governance by better coordinating e-government initiatives across government agencies.

The strategy addresses:

• Making Governments more approachable by meeting users' needs in a measurable way, and by centring service delivery around life events;
  
• Promoting a connected service delivery by unifying service delivery standards across different service channels (such as telephone, in-person and internet), and by interconnecting systems such as authentication systems and CRM data;
• Introducing Value-For-Money as a key metric in evaluating new e-government initiatives.  This strategy promotes a self-service agenda, and encourages systems that allow people to update their own personal information;
• Introducing service capability measurement plans and techniques into government agencies;
  
• A clear focus on security and privacy;
• Visible and traceable government services, meaning users should be able to track the progress of service requests in real time;
• The development of a technology blueprint which outlines the systems that need to be implemented in each agency.  A strong focus on user accounts and personalisation is apparent in the blueprint.
• Embracing mobile technology, especially with regard to emergency response, law enforcement, education, health care and teleworking.
• Encouraging Service Oriented Architectures using web services to interconnect agencies and agency systems.
  

Exciting tactical improvements include:

• The introduction of user accounts and personalised services onto the www.australia.gov.au website, with back-end interoperability to allow a user to update their details once, for distribution to all other relevant government agencies;
• The establishment of a government-wide project planning office, to assist in coordinated implementations of key systems.
  
• The re-development of standard vendor contracts for ICT vendors, building on the Government Information Technology Contract and the Endorsed Supplier Arrangement.
  

The Australian Government Information Management Office will be the central coordinator of this new strategy, and will assist government agencies in implementing these initiatives. 

It is not clear at this stage whether federal funding will be available to assist with e-Government projects.

The new e-Government strategy has re-enforced the e-Citizenship Vision that Datalink Managing Director Scott Davey has presented at recent conferences, and we hope will build the necessary momentum to achieve the vision.

Read the full strategy here.