4.2 Connected

Improvements in productivity are also dependent on reduced system duplication, improved data collation and consistent user experience. The Cyber Hubs program, which is currently in a pilot phase, has been designed to drive improvements in productivity by reducing duplication across government agencies, leveraging existing cyber investment, uplifting cyber security capability, and improving the Government’s ability to detect, protect and respond to cyber threats. Coordinated by the Digital Transformation Agency, Cyber Hubs are being established in the Department of Home Affairs, the Department of Defence, Services Australia, and the Australian Taxation Office. The program is also supported by the Australian Cyber Security Centre and the Attorney-General’s Department. Similarly, the APS continues to transform individual agency operating models and seeks to improve public sector productivity through shared services. Central service hubs focus on corporate services and organisational management. The Department of Finance’s Service Delivery Office is the first of several hubs to start using an element of the new common enterprise resource planning platform (GovERP) that is being built. Delivered through extensive client engagement and multi-disciplinary teams, it now provides a whole-of-government solution for travel and expense management.

Digital and data

The APS response to COVID-19 illustrated the importance of having high quality systems and data sets in place for more than one purpose. It demonstrated how we were able to leverage existing capabilities and develop new ones to deliver government services at scale and speed and provide real-time advice to Government about how the pandemic was unfolding. We need to keep building on this.

The revamping of the Secretaries Digital and Data Committee places digital transformation at the forefront of the APS, in considering investment in digital technology and APS workforce capability. It has also been supported by a renewed mandate of the Digital Transformation Agency, moving to the Department of Finance portfolio in 2022. The Digital Transformation Agency and the APS Digital Profession are playing a critical role in analysing existing APS technical and workforce capabilities and planning how to meet future capability needs.

With an ambitious goal to become one of the top three digital governments in the world by 2025 and a world-leading digital economy and society by 2030, the right investments are pivotal. The Digital and ICT Investment Oversight Framework seeks to provide Government with a coordinated approach to prioritising investment and a longer-term strategic focus.[35]

Part of this is providing agencies with clear views on risks and shared digital capabilities to establish a more connected digital landscape across the APS.

Digital investment is essential for delivering simpler, seamless services for Australians. Following a five-fold increase in capacity to meet community demand during the pandemic, myGov now has the largest capacity of any authenticated online platform in Australia, with a daily average of more than one million sign-ins. In September 2022, myGov underwent a significant upgrade to make online government services simpler and more unified.

Digital transformation is also integral to the ability to use new public and private sector ‘big data’ sources to generate new statistical insights for public policy outcomes.

To realise the potential of data in supporting services and policy, new data sources, including the Australian Taxation Office’s Single Touch Payroll system, provide access to statistical information previously unavailable. Single Touch Payroll covers more than 10 million employees in Australia and enables decision-makers to have access to near real- time jobs and wages data.

In October 2021, the ABS began releasing a new monthly indicator of business turnover and in February 2022 released a second monthly indicator that provides a measure of household consumption. The new consumption indicator on banks’ transaction data now covers 68% of household consumption, a significant step-up from the previous measure that covered about 30% of household consumption. [36] Household consumption accounts for about half of Australia’s Gross Domestic Product and the new indicator considerably enhances its accuracy.

Integrated data sets are being expanded and are improving our ability to design and implement policy. Core APS business and person integrated data assets, BLADE (Business Longitudinal Analysis Data Environment) and MADIP (Multi-Agency Data Integration Project [37]) have been developed over many years, and continue to mature and expand in use. For example, the rollout of COVID-19 vaccines was informed by data that linked the Australian Immunisation Register with MAPID, helping identify low-vaccine uptake among people from culturally diverse populations and enhance communication and community engagement.

Integrated data also informed responses to the devastating floods in New South Wales and Queensland, enabling detailed geographic business and economic information to be provided to the National Recovery and Resilience Agency to improve the effectiveness of their response.

Two new integrated data sets that are currently under development are the National Disability Data Asset (NDDA) and the Criminal Justice Data Asset. The NDDA is a partnership between the ABS, Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, and the Department of Social Services. It will offer the opportunity to better understand the lives of people with disability and their pathways through services.

The Criminal Justice Data Asset is a longitudinal national data asset under development showing how people move through the justice system nationally. Expected to be delivered in late 2023, this will offer the potential for approved policy-makers and researchers to analyse patterns of offending and inform policies to reduce recidivism.

Sophisticated analysis and secure access to data is supported through the ABS DataLab. Introduced as an on-premises facility in 2013, the DataLab went virtual in 2018 and then migrated to the cloud in early 2021. The DataLab has grown to have about 4,000 users across government, public policy institutes and academia. The number of Datalab users is currently growing at about 30 per cent every year. As data is a powerful tool for policy design and service delivery, data protection and privacy remains paramount. While the ABS DataLab enables authorised access to data while protecting the privacy of individuals, new legislation, the Data Availability and Transparency Act 2022, establishes a new, best-practice scheme for sharing Australian Government data, underpinned by strong safeguards. The DataLab is also being made available as a Commonwealth-wide platform for data sharing. The Department of Finance and the ATO will use the ABS DataLab to enable sophisticated analysis of their data and secure data sharing.

A fundamental shift is occurring, from a default where public and private sector data is not shared, to one in which it is. Learnings from the pandemic, including that the APS can quickly upscale and repurpose technology to deliver services differently, and that integrating data has significant benefits, will inform rolling improvements to reduce costs and improve services to businesses and the community.
 

Working together to deliver the 2021 Australian Census - ABS and Australian Signals Directorate
The 2021 Census Digital Service (CDS) was arguably Australia’s largest ever online event.
It collected data from more than 20 million people and provided a smooth and easy digital experience for users, with no service interruption. In achieving such an impressive outcome, the CDS demonstrated APS agency collaboration at its best, setting a new benchmark for digital delivery in government.
Over three years, the ABS and Australian Signals Directorate (ASD) worked together to make the CDS resilient to cyber-attack. Enhanced cyber security protections were put in place, together with defences against large-scale sophisticated distributed denial-of- service attacks.
The 2021 Census achieved a 96.1% dwelling response rate, and the lowest ever net undercount of 0.7%. This level of engagement by the Australian community reflected a high degree of public trust and confidence, made possible in part by the partnership between ABS and ASD.
The successful delivery of the 2021 Australian Census, and the cross-agency partnership between the ABS and ASD, were publicly recognised in the IPAA Spirit of Service Awards, winning the 2022 Collaboration Award.