The strategy promises to deliver better government services that are more accessible and don't cost the taxpayer as much to provide.
It aims to slash red tape and to reinvigorate the business of government.
The plan holds the promise of easing the compliance burden carried by small business, and should enable across-the-board efficiency savings to be made by the business community.
If individuals are able to avoid queues at government shopfront offices by using the net, then big business will be able to avoid such delays in bulk, and get cost savings to boot.
Just as e-tax arrangements at the tax office were a godsend for accountants, with more than 80 per cent of tax returns now done online, whole-of-government transactional access to all department will deliver efficiency benefits inside and outside government.
The "connected government" should become a vast range of integrated business-to-government transactions in which a report to one department will automatically update the records at another. Ambitions for it go well beyond updating names and addresses.
A company reporting fortnightly to Centrelink on the casual wages paid to staff may affect other agencies, with some data being automatically streamed to the tax office, for example, to update continuing reporting requirements.
Or, a small business that employs apprentices through a government-assistance scheme will have compliance obligations at a range of departments.
The connected government plan aims to give businesses online compliance forms to complete, with data entered on to the form then distributed across the various agencies - without the owner needing to understand what details each department requires.
Businesses will be able to effect changes at multiple departments through a single website in one internet session.
Access to this vast pool of government back-end systems will be driven by the implementation of a single sign-on authentication system envisaged by the government.
Con Colovos, executive director of business lobby group the CIO Executive Council, has applauded the work of the Australian Government Information Management Office.
While the AGIMO strategy was "inevitable", he says the fact that the government has made the decision to grapple with it early - compared with other parts of the world - is good for business and will be good for the community.
"It will create efficiencies not only in government, but in other sectors as well, especially those where there is a big compliance overhead," Colovos says.
"The streamlining of business processes and the creation of a one-stop shop are things that were already being talked about (by CIOs)."
"Once you have the ability to access all areas of government through a single point, it will create enormous efficiencies in other areas."
Just as individuals will be able to tailor their government portal access to direct them to the areas most relevant to their needs, businesses will also be able to manage the way they access the services - making it easier to deal with government.
That means it will save business owners money, Colovos says.
"From a businessman's perspective, you're looking at cost savings of maybe 15 per cent," he says, though he concedes it is difficult to quantify.
Public sector IT systems are largely driven by transactions. Governments hold long lists of people and numbers: how much tax this person owes; how much income support this person qualifies for; and so on.
Nairn points to the electronic transformation of the banking and finance industry as a pointer to the way connected government can transform the public sector.
"Everybody knows how much electronic banking has transformed that industry. It is an indication of what can be done in government in terms of increasing the convenience in accessing government services and information," he says.
For individuals, the benefit is convenience.
But for the business community, greater "convenience" has a value, which should translate to cost savings.
Changing the way that the community interacts with government will transform other areas of the economy, just as the introduction of electronic banking triggered changes in industries such as retailing.
These are not small ambitions.
Integrating the vast IT machinery of government is hugely complex, invariably expensive and not always successful.
The technology to achieve the aims is largely there. But it is the nature of the tech industry that the biggest challenge in any government project is never the technology.
Nairn and AGIMO general manager and CIO Ann Steward say that while the changes required to implement the strategy are sweeping, they are achievable.
And if it sets out big ambitions, Nairn says, what's wrong with that?
Steward says the strategy articulates a new "citizen-centric" approach to government.
It's a term we will all hear many more times, superseding other Howard government mantras such as the "whole of government" approach to IT management.
Given the pace at which trends and new projects wash through government, it is easy to be underwhelmed by visionary statements about our blue-sky technology future.
But for public sector IT - and in terms of impact on Australians and the business community - technology strategy announcements don't get any bigger than this.
It is easily the most important work to emerge from AGIMO since it was shifted to the Department of Finance from Helen Coonan's Department of IT and Communications after the 2004 election. Finance has left its fingerprints all over the strategy. While it maintains the existing policy of individual agencies retaining autonomy over IT purchasing decisions, department heads are left in no doubt as to who holds the purse strings in government.
Changed procurement practices outlined in the document - including the requirement that all IT projects valued over $10 million be assessed by an AGIMO committee - demonstrates that departments are expected to toe the line on standards.
The blueprint is politically untouchable. When Nairn presented the strategy to cabinet more than a month ago, it was said to have sailed through without objection - and if senior ministers are on board with the plan, their department heads will follow.
Much of the work on the program has been under way for some time.
E-government is an evolutionary process, and Nairn's contribution builds on two previous online government strategies.
His "Responsive Government" blueprint follows "Better Services, Better Government" in 2002, and "Government Online" in 2001.
It is sometimes difficult to note big changes in government machinery, because change is constant.
While the government's first move to internet front-ends was considered slow by breakneck dotcom-era standards, and back-end work seemed glacial, there are pockets of progress toward true online government.
Much of the work, including the single sign-on capability for its agencies, is being pioneered by the Human Services Department, headed by Joe Hockey.
Human Services' IT executives hope to launch a single sign-on portal in September, with Centrelink taking the lead development role.
Hockey is championing the government smartcard proposal that will act as the identifier for accessing government services online.
He's a good advocate - ask him about the 90 million letters Centrelink sends to clients every year and his face will turn red.
The heavy-lifting work, in development terms, is integrating the back-end systems of the various departments.
Centrelink CIO John Wadeson says the work outlined in the AGIMO strategy is complex, and will carry significant risk, just as all complex projects do.
It's an achievable goal, he says, based on Human Services experience - and it is well advanced.
"I'm pretty sure we'll get there in the end," Wadeson says.
"We'll work it out. And if we can work it out across the DHS (Department of Human Services) agencies, I'm quite sure we can work it out for the commonwealth." As is usually the case, immature technology is not an obstacle.
Everything Nairn needs to have an all-singing, all-dancing connected government in place by 2010 is available off the shelf.
The challenge for the commonwealth will be to get the departmental fiefdoms to co-operate on the projects.
It's easier said than done.
The creation of Human Services after the last election was a masterstroke by John Howard.
He wanted to get better value for money from the social welfare agencies that make up the department. The fact that the agency heads report to the same minister has assisted co-operation, as Hockey has a licence to bang heads together.
It required a joint effort from all Human Services agencies to build the Centrelink Business Gateway, where companies will go online to conduct reporting requirements.
"You never build a project on your own in government any more, it just doesn't happen," Wadeson says.
"It's always a collaboration with other departments."
And that's just the federal departments.
It is hoped the online gateways in the AGIMO scheme will eventually provide access to state government services as well.
Australian Information Industry Association chief executive Rob Durie is supportive of the AGIMO blueprint, but wonders whether setting a goal to have state involvement by 2010 may be a bridge too far.
"The huge challenge in all this is going to be in pushing it across boundaries of jurisdiction," Durie says.
"There's still a lot of detail that needs to come out and it is something I hope they will continue to push for.
"But there is a real challenge in linking the different levels of government."
Autor: James Riley
Quelle: Australian IT, 11.04.2006
