Designing world-leading services requires a digitally savvy workforce. Attracting, developing and retaining enough skilled digital people is a global challenge.

The first Australian Government Digital Summit and Digital Awards were held in October 2019 to help address this challenge. The Digital Summit attracted over 730 participants and helped strengthen connections across governments, industry and academia. The Digital Awards celebrated people, teams and initiatives that are making government easier to deal with.

The Digital Summit focused on how agencies can deliver better services for Australian people and businesses. Interactive workshops, expert panel sessions and case study discussions helped people develop skills to achieve this goal. For example, the Digital Transformation Agency’s co-Lab service has had new engagements with government agencies seeking to improve their services, arising from initial meetings at the summit. 

The Digital Summit was a success with 70% rating the event as very good or excellent. Many attendees remarked that having seen the exciting work being done around Australia, they feel the future of digital transformation in government is promising and are excited by what is to come. They have left with better connections across governments, industry and academia to help them deliver.

Attendees from industry told us:

“It’s great to get insight into how government works. It’s really useful to show my organisation how government thinks and help connect to government’s outcomes”.

Attendees from government told us:

“I feel like there is a great mix of things. Plenty for someone at my level as well as a few industry experts”, and “it was great to hear agencies sharing stories about what they are actually doing”.

Senior leaders are key to driving positive attitudes to innovation and change in government. The Leading Digital Transformation (LDT) program supports leaders to meet the expectations of citizens, business and other users of government services in the digital age. It reinforces the importance of user-centred design in all aspects of public service delivery.

The LDT program provides leaders with practical tools to drive digital transformation initiatives in their agencies. 97% of participants agreed that LDT was valuable in helping develop their digital leadership capabilities. State and territory governments are starting to join the program.

We provide ongoing support after the leaders complete the LDT Program, such as bi-monthly Digital Leaders Program Alumni events. The LDT program is creating a culture across government that supports digital transformation in a sustainable way.

Skilled staff are crucial to delivering effective digital services. Technology is always advancing and so are the capabilities needed to transform services. The Women in IT Executive Mentoring (WITEM) program helps women working in digital roles across government to develop leadership skills and reduce barriers to career progression. The program recognises digital capabilities that already exist in government, to quicken the pace of creation of digital services that are easier and faster to use.

WITEM mentors have helped mentees to navigate government environments, provided strategic direction and offered alternate perspectives to deal with workplace challenges. As the program has progressed, many mentees have increased their confidence and have made progress toward being the leader they aspire to be.

Since WITEM began, 200 mentees from 30 agencies have completed the program, with 537 participants from 33 agencies completing the Executive Leadership 1 Coaching Program for Women.

Bizlab Academy, within the Department of Industry, Innovation and Science, is a hub for all things human-centred design — a discipline championing evidence-based policy and qualitative analysis. It offers regular and comprehensive training and has trained over 235 people since launching in June 2018. The alumni program also offers ongoing support and opportunities for collaboration. The Academy contributes to our ability to embed digital methodologies in the way we design services across government.

We are embedding human centred design across the APS, in a fast, cost effective way. Human Centred Design improves the services we create for you and provides better evidence to inform policy. Through our training, we are supporting a citizen-centric culture, innovation and collaboration.

The Behavioural Economics Team of the Australian Government (BETA) applies behavioural insights (BI) to public policy. BI draws from psychology, neuroscience and economics to bring a more complete understanding of human behaviour to policy design and implementation, leading to better policies that consider how people behave. Where possible, BETA pilots interventions through randomised control trials to measure impact robustly and improve services based on this evidence.

BETA has built strong networks of BI champions and practitioners across the APS. The Behavioural Insights Champions Network is tasked with increasing awareness of BI within champions’ agencies while the Behavioural Insights Practitioners Network aims to support peer learning among APS staff with recognised capability in BI.

The Entrepreneurs’ Program helps small and medium enterprises grow, innovate and bring their ideas to market. We’re giving businesses access to a national network of experienced business and innovation advisers to improve their business practices and become more competitive. We’re also giving them the tools they need to take advantage of increasing trade opportunities in Australia and overseas.

In July 2018 the program launched a specialised digital and advanced technology advice service and had delivered it to nearly 500 businesses by October 2019. The service provides technical expert advice, supported by grant funding, to assist businesses to adopt and integrate new and existing digital technologies to develop and improve their products, processes and services; to improve business knowledge and confidence with digital; to help businesses develop and implement transformative business models that leverage digital technology; and to build capabilities in Industry 4.0, industrial internet of things, smart robotics and automation, AI and machine learning, and cyber security.