The Australian Government has released a roadmap for the widespread adoption of mobile technology throughout the Australian Public Service. The aim is to generate benefits on two distinct fronts: improving operational efficiency and staff mobility for government agencies; improving communication and engagement with Australian citizens.
The Federal Government’s mobile strategy does not bind state governments, which have their own plans for making increased use of mobile devices and services as part of their wider IT strategies. The NSW Government released its IT strategy in 2012. Curiously it has very little to say on the first of the two aspects of mobility identified in the Federal Government roadmap - the use of mobile devices by government agencies to help them fulfil their roles more efficiently and effectively.
There is only one statement that comes close: “Public sector staff will be empowered to use social media tools where it can assist in improving service delivery. Services will be mobile, agile and able to respond quickly to emerging issues.” However the strategy does commit the NSW Government to establishing Service NSW to provide, amongst other things, mobile applications to deliver real time information to customers.
The Federal Mobile Roadmap outlines a number of specific actions for the Australian Government Information Management Office (AGIMO) and agencies to undertake over the next two years to achieve:
- appropriate customer-facing services conveniently available through accessible, personalised, location-aware, and easy to use mobile channels;
- improved workplace productivity through effectively employed mobile technology;
- increased capability to develop and support mobile solutions;
- adoption of a consultative, user-centric design approach with industry that acknowledges and builds on whole-of-government solutions and encourages more consistent but no less innovative use of mobile technology; and
- the establishment of policies, standards and practices to assist the efficient adoption of mobile solutions.
It also calls on AGIMO to investigate:
- common approaches to remote access services that work across the full range of mobile devices to better support a more mobile workforce; and
- further application of mobile technology to support the APS telework goal of 12 percent of staff regularly teleworking by 2020.
The Roadmap is a component of the Federal Government’s Australian Public Service Information and Communications Technology Strategy 2012-2015 (ICT Strategy) released last year and the National Digital Economy Strategy Update: Advancing Australia as a Digital Economy (NDES Update) released in June 2013.
A key component of the NDES Update is ‘Digital First’, a plan to have the vast majority of government services entirely online by the end of 2017.
Commenting on the plan on the AGIMO blog, David Tune, secretary of the Department of Finance and Deregulation, said that the Secretaries’ ICT Governance Board (SIGB) would have a key role in the implementation of Digital First strategy.
“A Digital First Coordination Group led by the Departments of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy (DBCDE) and of Finance and Deregulation (Finance) will report to the Government on implementation of the Digital First policy through the SIGB.
“Major service delivery agencies will be members of the coordination group. … This new role for SIGB enhances its responsibility for the whole-of-government use of ICT and advising Government on whole-of-government ICT priorities and strategic ICT investments. The SIGB will continue to oversee implementation of the APS ICT Strategy to drive productivity through better service delivery, improved efficiency of government operations and engagement with people, communities and business.”
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