Corporate Plan 2018–22

The Digital Transformation Agency Corporate Plan 2018–22.

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CEO’s statement

As the accountable authority for the Digital Transformation Agency (DTA), I am pleased to present our Corporate Plan 2018–22, which covers the period 2018–19 to 2021–22, as required under paragraph 35 (1)(b) of the Public Governance, Performance and Accountability Act 2013 (PGPA Act).

Randall Brugeaud

Chief Executive Officer

Our purpose

We accelerate the digital transformation of government by encouraging coordinated investment in digital services, helping to transform the experience of people and businesses dealing with government, and improving the return on ICT and digital investment.

Our roles and functions

• We provide strategic leadership on whole-of-government and shared ICT and digital services, including sourcing and capability development.
• We deliver policies, standards and platforms for whole-of-government and shared ICT and digital service delivery.
• We provide advice to agencies and the Government on ICT and digital investment proposals.
• We oversee significant ICT and digital investments, assurance policy and framework, and the whole-of-government digital portfolio.

Our functions are formally set out in the Public Governance, Performance and Accountability Amendment (Digital Transformation Agency) Rule 2016.

Our environment

The DTA operates in a global environment that is characterised by ongoing technological development and disruption. We need to ensure we are able to respond in an agile and effective manner and support government to do the same.

People and businesses are more connected than ever and they expect to be able to access and engage with government digitally, in a way that is:

• reliable, consistent and easy to use
• trusted and secure, with smarter use and storage of personal data and the ability to control its use
• a joined up digital experience, supporting natural interactions without needing to change agencies or channels to get things done.

People and businesses expect to be able to interact digitally with government just as they do with private sector organisations. There are a number of differences though. An important difference is the complex environment of government services. Government often needs to connect a large number of agencies and services to support ‘life events’ (such as having a baby) while private sector organisations often work in less complex environments.

The DTA is privileged to be at the centre of digital transformation in government services, but we work in an environment where we depend on partner government agencies to deliver on key outcomes. It is therefore important for the DTA to be effective in exerting our influence, rather than having direct control, over the delivery of services across government.

The DTA’s capacity to deliver is also strongly influenced by the capability available within both the Australian Public Service (APS) and the private sector. The gap between the digital transformation skills that are required and the skills that are available is becoming larger by the day. We have a key role in building digital capability within the APS, as well as facilitating and encouraging partnerships with private sector organisations.

The DTA has invested heavily in building productive working relationships with key stakeholders and partners. This needs to continue. We work closely with partner government agencies as well as our portfolio agency, the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet. We will continue to work with the CSIRO’s Data61 to broaden our partnership and further leverage its capabilities and specialist expertise.

Our priorities

The DTA’s priorities have been identified against a large potential scope of work. While we will continue to provide a broad range of advice, coordination and support services, our key focus in 2018–19 will be delivery.

We will focus on the following strategic priorities:

1. Delivery of a Digital Transformation Strategy and Roadmap, looking out to 2025.
2. A program of digital capability improvement, including sourcing reform.
3. Delivery of whole-of-government digital platforms such as Digital Identity, Notifications, Tell us Once and improvements to myGov.
4. Delivery of investment advice, an assurance policy and framework, and whole-of-government portfolio oversight on ICT and digital investments.

Each priority has a set of success measures, targets and methodologies showing how we will assess our performances.

We will track our performance and report on our achievements against the success measures and targets in this Corporate Plan and the related performance criteria in our Portfolio Budget Statements through our Annual Performance Statement.

Appendix A maps our Portfolio Budget Statements to our Corporate Plan.

Priority 1: Delivery of a Digital Transformation Strategy and Roadmap, looking out to 2025.

Our approach

We are developing a whole-of-government Digital Transformation Strategy to ensure that digital services are simple, clear and fast. We will continue to work with government agencies to ensure that we protect the privacy and security of people and businesses interacting with government.

Digital technologies are fundamentally changing how we live and work. Australians expect government to keep up with these changes. The strategy will outline clear aspiration and plans for improving the government digital services experience over the short, medium and long-term. It will also bring together work the DTA is already doing to advance digital transformation in areas such as whole-of-government platforms, hosting, content and critical infrastructure.

During 2018–19, we will also deliver a roadmap which sets out a plan and describes the benefits associated with the Digital Transformation Strategy. It will describe the more detailed shifts in experience the Government expects to deliver to people and businesses.

The Digital Transformation Strategy and roadmap will provide a blueprint to support APS agencies as they collaborate to improve people’s experiences with government.  The roadmap will inform development of whole-of-government digital platforms (Priority 3) and investment advice (Priority 4).

Working towards our purpose

Key activities for this year are:

• The Digital Transformation Strategy and Roadmap—Develop a strategy to set the direction for digital transformation in the APS out to 2025. The strategy will include a roadmap to drive real improvements for people and businesses over the short, medium and long term.

Our opportunities, challenges and risks

• Digital transformation can significantly improve the experience and outcomes for people and businesses in their dealings with government. The Digital Transformation Strategy will set this direction.
• Transforming and improving services will require changes to how government works. This will require uplift in digital capability, to be pursued through Priority 2. The Digital Transformation Strategy will help set direction for these changes.
• There is risk in change and innovation. It will therefore be important to iterate quickly to test thinking and fail fast to reduce the risk of transformation change.

Priority 2: A program of digital capability improvement, including sourcing reform.

Our approach

To accelerate the Government’s transformation agenda, we are working with government agencies to improve digital capability. This includes providing guidance, tools and training to help teams set up, run and maintain digital services.

We are also improving access to quality assured digital training. We support the exchange of ideas and best practice through communities of practice, directly partnering with government agencies and hosting special events that encourage innovation.

In addition, we are driving improvements in government’s sourcing of digital products and services. We will make it simpler for industry to sell relevant capabilities to government and for governments to buy those capabilities from industry. Our aim is to achieve better value, provide more opportunities for small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) and encourage increased competition and innovation. This priority includes implementation of the Australian Government’s ICT Procurement Taskforce recommendations. Improved sourcing approaches will be an important element of investment advice provided in Priority 4.

Working towards our purpose

Key activities for this year are:

• Digital capability uplift—Improve the digital capacity and capability in the APS by delivering improved digital skills programs and by encouraging new people to join the APS through entry-level and lateral recruitment programs.
• ICT Procurement Taskforce recommendations—Implement the recommendations of the taskforce. Through this program we will introduce policies, principles, tools and guidance for government agencies to deliver cost savings, increase SME participation, make government easier to do business with, encourage competition and drive innovative thinking.
• Digital Marketplace—Continue to develop the Digital Marketplace to improve competition and help SMEs compete for government’s substantial investments in digital transformation.
• Whole-of-government sourcing—Provide ongoing management of whole-of government panel arrangements including telecommunications, Microsoft licencing, mobiles, cloud and data centres. In addition, we will expand panel arrangements to offer government buyers an avenue to purchase Commercial Off the Shelf (COTS) software, storage, networking equipment and cabling services.

Our opportunities, challenges and risks

• Australians are receptive to adopting new technologies, many of which offer significant opportunities to improve government services, and the Government is enthusiastic about uplifting digital skills across the APS to improve service, program and policy outcomes. We will need to ensure the capability program is sufficiently broad to have an impact.
• Engaging SMEs will require a change in mindset in government sourcing.
• Failing to respond quickly enough to engage SMEs could lead to capability gaps or sub-optimal outcomes in government.

Priority 3: Delivery of whole-of-government digital platforms such as Digital Identity, Notifications, Tell Us Once and improvements to myGov.

Our approach

The DTA is leading the delivery of a number of whole-of-government digital service platforms. Digital service platforms are a set of digital capabilities that can be reused across government. These digital platforms will deliver important elements of the 2025 roadmap for digital transformation under Priority 1.

Whole-of-government digital platforms reduce the need for each agency to build their own capabilities. Platforms make it faster and simpler to deliver digital services, improving efficiency and reducing costs. They free up agencies to focus on how they can best meet users’ needs. They support more consistent and improved user experiences that enable people and businesses to interact with government in an integrated way regardless of the number of agencies involved in delivering an outcome.

Working towards our purpose

Key activities for this year are:

• myGov improvements—Lead the continued improvement of myGov through incremental enhancements to the existing myGov platform. Lead the design of a future myGov platform that offers proactive services, based on life events that allow users to maintain control of their data. Support the transition of new digital services to the existing and future myGov platforms, with a focus on minimising user impact and improving user experience.
• Digital Identity—Deliver the Digital Identity platform to provide a secure and consistent way to access government services. Digital identity will connect up to eight government services in 2018–19 enabling up to 2.1 million people to access services digitally. This will enable people to provide who they are in a secure way minimising the need for face-to-face and paper-based interactions.
• Digital Services Platforms—Deliver working prototypes for the initial set of whole-of-government Digital Services Platforms such as Tell Us Once, Notifications Inbox and Payments.
• Digital Platform Strategy—Provide direction on how agencies should develop and consume reusable digital capabilities in a way that breaks down siloes and removes duplication, resulting in a unified, seamless experience for people and businesses.
• Hosting Strategy—Set a clear direction for hosting, from data centre facilities to cloud services, including minimum standards (system, legislative, policy) to be met by government and hosting and cloud services suppliers. The standards will address risks relating to data sovereignty, ownership and control. The strategy will balance sufficient oversight and guidance to safeguard the security of government systems and data with the agility and speed to market needed to address policy changes, to improve the service experience for individuals and businesses engaging with government.
• GovX—Understand user journeys by engaging with users of government services. Aim to identify common pain points for people interacting with government services and run a series of pilots to find new ways to solve them. GovX pilots will include the testing of new approaches and technology that can scale across government agencies, and the development of life event communities to promote cross-agency, human-centred problem solving.
• co-Lab—Establish the Sydney and Canberra co-Labs. co-Labs are dedicated spaces for enhancing digital capability across government through cross-agency collaboration, innovation and transformation.
• Digital products—Continue to improve user experience around the DTA’s flagship products, Australia.gov.au, cloud.gov.au, data.gov.au, nationalmap.gov.au, and simplify the management of the Commonwealth’s domain name space.
• Digital transformation support for government agencies in their use of emerging technology—Produce digital guides, build communities of practice and, where appropriate, develop proofs of concept that inform government in the best practice application of emerging technologies.
• Blockchain—Explore the potential use of Blockchain by Australian Government agencies. Based on this exploratory work we will produce guidance on potential use cases for blockchain as well as develop a working proof of concept.
• Digital Service Standard—Ensure that the Digital Service Standard is current and fit-for-purpose in guiding agencies to design services that are simple, clear and fast.

Our opportunities, challenges and risks

• There are opportunities to: 
  • drive better use of government data by connecting the DTA’s open data activities with whole-of-government data initiatives
  • help reduce APS barrier for cloud.gov.au uptake by working collaboratively across government
  • strengthen agencies’ application of the Digital Service Standard by applying the Digital Maturity Model
  • embed the Digital Service Standard as the default best practice criteria for digital transformation for APS human-centred services and best practice service delivery.
• Challenges include:
  • competition with the private sector for uniquely skilled and experienced personnel
  • the need to integrate new technologies for Digital Identity, including biometric matching to achieve the right balance of user experience and security—we are working closely with partner agencies to ensure the new technologies work seamlessly with existing government solutions.
• There is a risk that agencies do not transition to whole-of-government digital service platforms and continue to use internal capabilities to deliver government services. The Digital Platforms Strategy will outline funding principles, governance structures, organisation design principles and a capability model to support agencies with the transition to the whole-of-government digital service platforms ecosystem.

Priority 4: Delivery of investment advice, an assurance policy and framework, and whole-of-government oversight on ICT and digital investments.

Our approach

The DTA oversees and advises on government ICT and digital investment. This ensures initiatives are being set up in the best way for successful delivery by government agencies. Investment advice will support the Digital Transformation Strategy (Priority 1) and procurement reform (Priority 2) and encourage adoption of re-usable whole-of-government digital platforms (Priority 3).

Oversight of the Government’s ICT and digital investment portfolio gives the DTA the opportunity to monitor budgets, risks and benefits at a whole-of-government level. It also provides opportunities to share insights and to coordinate procurement, to allow the Government to make the most of its buying power.

This helps to ensure that ICT and digital investments are delivering against government priorities and continuing to provide better services to people and businesses.

Working towards our purpose

Key activities for this year are:

• Data collection and analysis—Continue to collect data from agencies on significant ICT and digital investments. This allows evaluation of initiative progress and assessment of risk and return on investment to inform future investment decisions. Data collection and analysis are required to allow insights across government to be generated.
• Insights and dashboards—Continue to publicly publish the performance of government services to increase transparency and provide insights that drive improvements. Over time, bring together service dashboards across user life events to guide opportunities where government can focus its digital transformation investments.
• Portfolio management—Continue to provide oversight of significant ICT and digital investments across government. Through this, identify whole-of-government risks, gaps and opportunities by strategically analysing initiative governance, risk management and benefits management. Further develop and implement the policy and frameworks for ensuring effective assurance of ICT and digital initiatives.
• Investment advice—Continue to provide strategic advice to the Government on ICT and digital investments. Work with agencies to ensure digital investments align with government priorities and improve the experience of people and businesses in dealing with government. Provide advice to government on these proposals to assist investment decision making.

Our opportunities, challenges and risks

• Working with key stakeholders, we have the opportunity to enable a more strategic approach to government ICT and digital investments, to ensure they are efficiently targeted to improve the experience of people and businesses in dealing with government.
• There is also the opportunity for improvements to the investment oversight process to deliver more consistent decision making across the full lifecycle of investments. This spans development, through proposal review, initial approval to proceed, approval to continue, and requests for future funding.
• Reform to ICT and digital investment oversight will involve a number of structural challenges. Delivering change will require strong commitment and collaboration across central agencies and government generally. It also requires adequate resourcing and capability.
• There is a risk of stakeholders and the public underestimating the challenges of improved ICT and digital investment. Expectations must be managed, especially to ensure broad understanding that responsibility and accountability for projects remains with delivery agencies.

Our capability

To successfully lead the Government’s digital transformation agenda, our workforce has a unique set of capabilities. We are a small executive agency and our people have the skills and experience that many service delivery agencies need, including:

• User-centred research and design—Ability to understand customer needs and translate into practical requirements.
• Agile delivery methodologies—Use of contemporary delivery methodologies that better reflect an iterative development approach.
• Digital design and build—ability to capture business requirements and establish appropriate solutions.
• Systems architecture—Technical skills related to the emerging technology landscape including service and interaction design, and front and back-end engineering.
• Stakeholder engagement—Ability to engage and influence multiple agencies concurrently.
• Strategic sourcing—Ability to optimise value of software, hardware and services purchased, driven by closer and more effective alignment between the needs of buyers and offering of sellers.
• Agile policy development skills—Iterative development skills to guide policy establishment.
• Public policy design—Deep understanding of government policy position.
• Change management—Ability to understand user needs and help them navigate through changes that impact them.

We work in an agile way. We form multidisciplinary teams with partners, responding quickly to change, working in small, fast cycles and delivering continuously as we learn through research with users.

Our workforce plan is helping us to build a responsive and agile future agency workforce. It includes five areas of focus that we aim to deliver between 2018 and 2023.

These five areas of focus are to:

• Align the operating environment and workforce—Provide an integrated and coordinated approach to the way DTA operates, and reduce duplication of effort.
• Attract and retain talent—Develop people strategies to promote and embed a culture of leadership, growth and development, and inform the development of an agreed employee value proposition to support attraction and recruitment processes. This will help broaden access to supply and ensure internal and external messaging is aligned to our unique purpose.
• Strengthen partnerships—Increase focus on developing strategic partnering arrangements with industry and public sector agencies to create a culture of collaboration. Strategic partnerships will be essential to meeting and managing our future demands in an ever evolving environment.
• Improve resource management—Implement a resource management model with supporting tools and guidance material to provide greater visibility and allocation of our resources (financial, people, assets etc.) to align with our priorities and mitigate the impact of capability gaps.
• Implement strategic workforce planning—Establish a systemic and agreed enterprise approach to workforce planning. This will help to provide a clear view of workforce supply and demand, and ongoing management of our contingent workforce. Our workforce plan is based on a premise of build, borrow and buy the capability to deliver on our priorities.

Risk management

Risk statement

The DTA will deliver on the priorities described in this Corporate Plan. The DTA operates in a unique way when compared with most agencies across government. Due to our small scale, a large proportion of our delivery program depends on effective collaboration with partner agencies, industry and academia. Although we are not a central agency, we set the strategic direction for digital in government, we provide advice to inform investment decisions and we oversee program implementation, offering insights that improve delivery performance. Our operating model is also unique. A flexible and agile delivery approach is fundamental to everything we do. This allows us to drive change in an incremental way, learning from our experiences and harnessing new opportunities as they emerge. Finally, the DTA applies our resources to improving digital capabilities across all levels of government. This includes bridging the ever-increasing digital skills gap, improving whole-of-government procurement outcomes and delivering common architectures and platforms, which allow us to solve common problems in a more coordinated way.

Given our unique operating environment, we need to tailor our approach to managing risk. This allows us to identify the priority risks and customise our ongoing response plans. We also need to build strong relationships with partner agencies to share and, in many cases, jointly manage these risks. If this is not done well, there is a real risk that the quality of government services consumed by people and businesses will diminish.

Our investment advisory and oversight role allows us to shape ICT and digital investments to better meet the Government’s objectives. Major reform in this area also requires a much more collaborative approach across government. It is also likely to require structural changes to investment and monitoring frameworks. There is a risk that transformation expectations exceed the capacity of government to change. Our approach is to promote a common understanding of our objectives and ensure that agencies commit to collaboratively deliver against an agreed plan.

Finally, the use of temporary personnel such as contractors and consultants can present risks in relation to value for money, skills and the management of intellectual property. To address this, we will continue to work with the Australian Public Service Commission to build digital capability in the APS and establish partnerships with the private sector to develop the necessary skills more broadly.

Risk management approach

The DTA will manage risk in line with the AS/NZS 31000:2018 Risk Management as well as the Commonwealth Risk Management Guidelines. Managing risk is everyone’s responsibility at the DTA, however, ultimate responsibility rests with the DTA’s CEO as the Accountable Authority. The CEO will be assisted by the Executive Board, taking an enterprise-wide view of our activities. Our Executive Board will periodically review identified enterprise risks to confirm existing risks and identify new risks, update the risk rating based on a common criteria, consider the adequacy of current controls based on the risk rating, and develop resource treatment plans to move risks to the desired level/risk rating.

All DTA employees will engage with risk, and commensurate with their role, treat risks for their accountabilities and escalate as required. All projects conduct periodic risk assessments, with treatment plans bringing risks into an acceptable tolerance. Risk assessments allow project owners and Division Heads to assess areas of resourcing need, and escalate with a common language to gain the attention of management and executive. We will grow our risk maturity and aim to have all projects and business using risk as a key management tool.

The current Enterprise Risk Management framework is now a number of years old. The DTA is embarking on a refresh to ensure the framework remains relevant and useful to managing risk in projects as well as Enterprise/Strategic Risk Management. Specific risk assessments for fraud, security and privacy will be refreshed, reflecting the importance of each of those areas in delivering on our purpose. We will use these risk assessments, along with project and enterprise risk assessments to inform the development of a fit for purpose Internal Audit program. This will provide assurance that risk is managed appropriately, and identify ongoing improvements the DTA may adopt.

A: Portfolio Budget Statements mapped to our Corporate Plan