Dear Minister
Four months ago, you gave the members of the Information Technology Review Group the challenging task of examining Commonwealth acquisition and use of information technology. You asked for a series of recommendations that were directed at making information technology a more efficient and effective means of achieving the objectives of government.
The Review Group has examined more than 80 written submissions, more than half from outside the Australian Public Service, and has met 22 times to interview a range of people, including some of your Ministerial colleagues. Because the Review has had a relatively short timetable, we have focused on areas where members believe greatest impact can be achieved by Government. It has not sought to produce a report that contains a comprehensive and detailed analysis of all aspects of Commonwealth information technology.
This is a period of extraordinary change in how information technology, defined by the Review Group to embrace both computing and telecommunications, is used to serve the business needs of organisations large and small. Where once large central computing facilities could be regarded as utilities supplying resources in a similar manner to utilities providing energy, there is now a perspective that emphasises the integration of the technology with the business.
Much of what we have read and been told about Commonwealth use of information technology is encouraging. In particular, the Government has been well served by the use of information technology to automate large-scale transaction processing.
In many respects the government now finds itself in a similar situation to governments in other countries and to large corporate entities here and abroad. The common issue for all these organisations is whether the ways of the past will serve the needs of the future.
The Review Group found that there was room for reform in how the Government used information technology to develop policy and conduct its administration. However, the greatest potential lay in transforming the quality, range and relevance of Government client service delivery. Those clients may be categorised as job seekers, welfare beneficiaries, hospital patients, school children and tax payers, decisions about their lives and work.
That is why it has called this report Clients First: the challenge for government information technology.
The government has recently released the final report of the Broadband Services Expert Group, Networking Australia's Future. The exciting view of the future contained in it does not need to be summarised here but it is a vision the Review Group shares. This is a period of great flux in which there is limited time to pause and reflect how Government positions itself for a future of high performance computing on desktops and broadband networks connecting us to the world.
Our report is directed at making the government ready to take up the challenge of that future by ensuring it has tuned its own use of information technology to the appropriate pitch and by developing strategies to take up opportunities to deliver better services while containing costs.
The importance of government becoming a leading edge user of information technology to provide services is highlighted in the Broadband Services Expert Group report and the Review Group endorses this emphasis. The Review believes that the Commonwealth because of its size, complexity and relevance to the lives of citizens, needs to develop a strategic view of how it participates in this new environment.
The Commonwealth has important options to exercise in the degree to which it takes up the challenge to use information technology in a more efficient, effective and creative fashion. It can choose to make relatively modest administrative changes to current operations or it can undertake major re-engineering of its processes as many large organisations in the private sector and overseas governments are doing.
The Review has produced recommendations that range across this spectrum, some of them directed at identified problems and some to major strategic redirection. These options are for the Review to recommend and for the Government to choose whether to adopt. Some may require further analysis but many can be implemented relatively quickly.
Some of the Review's recommendations are that:
· a service vision that puts clients first should be developed and articulated by the Government in order to provide a blueprint for service delivery;
· the architecture of information technology adopted by the Commonwealth needs to define a platform that through commonality and interoperability enables maximum flexibility;
· information technology and corporate planning processes need to be closely drawn together so that changing the business can be enabled by the use of technology;
· accurate and reliable information about the acquisition and use of information technology needs to be assembled as a database that will become an essential planning resource;
· the benefits of cross-agency uses of information technology need to be more vigorously pursued in the interests of greater efficiency and better client service delivery;
· information technology staff should be regarded as a shared resource across the Commonwealth and their skills should reflect an understanding of the business needs of the public sector;
· the option of outsourcing needs to be considered in terms of defining the core activities of agencies and in improving agency focus on their business needs;
· government purchasing reforms should be pursued to focus attention on vendor capability rather than detailed specification of information technology systems; this should involve more widespread use of partnering arrangements;
· information systems that have for historical reasons been developed for administrative functions within agencies should be rationalised to reduce duplication and provide greater cross-agency flexibility for program delivery;
· communications and computing are now inextricably linked and similar rationalisation of data networks should occur to achieve scale economies and operating efficiency;
· privacy guidelines that were developed in an information systems environment dominated by central computing should be reviewed in the light of this report to take account of the potential benefits offered to clients and the Commonwealth by new systems approaches; and
· the role of Chief Information Officer should be created at a very senior level to, in conjunction with agency chief executives, co-ordinate, encourage, monitor and implement information technology policy across the public service in accord with Government direction.
The Review Group believes that the development of a wider view of the role of information technology across government is essential. Experience in other countries and our observations during the Review indicate that the benefits of change are maximised by high level political leadership.
We believe it is timely for the Commonwealth Cabinet to consider what its leadership role will be. One option is the formation of a Cabinet Sub-Committee to articulate the vision and ensure its implementation for the benefit of clients and at reduced cost to taxpayers.
The Review Group would like to record its appreciation to all those individuals and groups who made submissions, provided information and made themselves available for interviews. We also acknowledge with thanks the efforts of the Review's secretariat staff, especially Mr Allan Maclean and Ms Ann Whitehead.
On behalf of the members of the Information Technology Review Group, I commend the report to you.
Yours sincerely
Dr Ian Reinecke
for the Information Technology Review Group
1 March 1995
Last Updated: 14 March 1995