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In response to a rapid growth in interactive telecommunications networks and other online technologies, the New South Wales Government has developed a strategic framework — ‘connect.nsw’ — to encourage government agencies in New South Wales, business and the community to adopt online technology. This paper outlines the four connect.nsw strategies: integrated government, electronic service delivery, electronic commerce and networked communities. It describes the management structure that has been implemented to ensure involvement by all stakeholders, and highlights the innovative information management initiatives that have been developed to underpin the strategies.
As we undertake the transformation from the industrial to the information era, innovative ways of using online information technologies to achieve service excellence will become a key competitive factor in differentiating successful from average performance in the global economy. Societies with clear government leadership and foresight will be ahead of their competitors. Governments around the world are undertaking strategic and operational initiatives to position their communities for the information age.
In the vanguard of these new technologies is the Internet and its World Wide Web. The current global user population of the Web is estimated to be about 100 million, and is predicted to rise to more than 300 million in the year 2002. Current world-wide electronic commerce trade is estimated to be at US$8 billion, and is projected to be more than US$300 billion in 2002.1 In Australia, 3 million people accessed the Internet in the 12 months of 1997. In February 1998 850 000 households had Internet access, with an increase of 50 per cent expected by February 1999. During the 18 months of June 1996 to December 1998, online purchasing in Australia tripled to reach a total of $55 million. In January 1998 there were 54 800 active business Web sites. By the end of 1998, most of top 1000 businesses in Australia were expected to have an online presence.2
In addition to the Web, other online media are also being increasingly deployed to provide the community with a choice of methods for interacting with government, e.g. interactive voice response, call centres, kiosks and automatic teller machines.
New South Wales Government agencies have been quick to recognise the opportunities afforded by the application of online technologies to government information and services. The Government currently spends between $35m and $60m per year on separately planned initiatives regarding the Internet and electronic service delivery. A further $15m–$20m per year is spent on digital data communication services running over 89 separate agency-wide area networks and supported by 450 New South Wales Government employees.
Examples of online services currently available to the public and business through these individual agency initiatives include:
The New South Wales Government recognises that agencies have prime responsibility for identifying how online technologies can be best deployed to better serve their customers. However, from the Government’s perspective, it is equally important that these initiatives and their associated resources are coordinated across government to help realise the Government’s vision of whole-of-government service delivery. Rather than centralise the implementation of government online services, the New South Wales Government’s approach is to add value to customer-focused agency initiatives by creating a strategic framework within which the benefits of these initiatives can be maximised in a cost-effective manner.
In late 1997, the Office of Information Technology (OIT) developed ServiceNSW to provide the community with a common Web entry point to existing online government information and services. ServiceNSW delivers a practical operational response to the challenge of whole-of-government service delivery. It was launched on 29th January 1998 with about 250 links to government information and services spread across 70 agency Web sites. ServiceNSW presents these links from a customer perspective, so that (unlike the agency-based approach) the community does not need to know the structure of government in order to locate the required information or service. Access is available via keyword, alphabetical listing of services (A–Z), government service sector (see Figure 1) or agency.
Figure 1. Access to ServiceNSW
To date, ServiceNSW has grown to more than 990 links to information and services spread across about 190 agency Web sites. This significant growth in the short span of 9 months, underlines the tremendous progress in online service delivery made by individual New South Wales Government agencies.
OIT is building on this progress with a series of planned improvements to ServiceNSW described later in this paper. These subsequent phases will also build on the expanding number and range of sector-based information and services delivered to communities of common interest. For example, the Business service sector of ServiceNSW will become a ‘one-stop’ access point for the business community as part of a national business sector initiative. Other planned initiatives include the development of the Education service sector into a world-class site delivering learning at all levels to all sections of the community. ServiceNSW can be found at the New South Wales Government home page, http://www.nsw.gov.au.
While ServiceNSW provides an operational framework for leveraging existing agency initiatives to deliver whole-of-government online service delivery, the New South Wales Government also recognises the need for a long-term strategy for using these technologies to fundamentally reform service delivery across government.
In December 1997, the New South Wales Cabinet endorsed connect.nsw, a strategy for reform of government services as the strategic framework for managing agency online initiatives on a whole-of-government basis. The strategy also positions New South Wales as a global leader in the use of online information technologies. Connect.nsw outlines how these technologies will be used to streamline internal government processes, reduce costs, improve service delivery and generally enhance the quality of life for the New South Wales community. The connect.nsw strategy can be found at http://www.oit.nsw.gov.au/connect.nsw.
Connect.nsw proposes the use of new technologies to implement four underlying strategies:
In endorsing the connect.nsw strategy, Cabinet directed that a new Standing Committee of the Chief Executives Committee (CEC) be created to implement the strategy. The Standing Committee comprises the key government stakeholders in online service delivery: the Premier’s (chair), Attorney General’s, Education and Training, Health, Public Works and Services and State and Regional Development Departments plus the Roads and Traffic Authority. In January 1998, the Standing Committee created four inter-agency Reference Groups (one for each of the four connect.nsw strategies) to identify the specific outcomes of connect.nsw, the initiatives needed to achieve these outcomes, and a framework to implement the program of activities in each initiative. Each of the Reference Groups was made up of senior agency business managers to provide the appropriate customer focus for the implementation of the connect.nsw strategies.
During March/April 1998 the Reference Groups held a series of workshops to develop the outcomes, initiatives and framework. The key connect.nsw outcomes were identified as:
The key connect.nsw initiatives (described in more detail in the Appendix) that would deliver defined outcomes, were identified as:
Also, to ensure the success of the program, several key management initiatives (described in more detail in the Appendix) were identified:
In July 1998, the CEC Standing Committee and Cabinet IT Sub-committee unanimously endorsed the connect.nsw Implementation Framework. It was presented to New South Wales Government agencies on 3 August 1998. The Reference Groups were then dissolved, with Premier’s Department and OIT responsible to the CEC Standing Committee for most of the whole-of-government projects, and agencies responsible for agency and inter-agency projects. The connect.nsw Implementation Framework can be found at http://www.oit.nsw.gov.au/connect.nsw.
During the development of the connect.nsw strategy, it was readily apparent that the success of connect.nsw was not dependent on technological issues alone. The Implementation Framework identifies a number of information management initiatives that underpin the whole connect.nsw program.
The initiative ‘develop and implement standards’ recognises that effective sharing of information between individual agencies requires the information to conform to basic standards. This initiative develops and implements the technical standards needed to support the integration of information across government agencies. The information management standards will be developed by OIT in the form of guidelines on inventory, classification, custodianship, copyright, liability, privacy/confidentiality, quality, indexing, pricing and licensing. They will be placed under the ‘policy framework’ section at http://www.oit.nsw.gov.au. The Government requires that all agencies have information management plans that address the implementation of these standards. In particular, the implementation of the AGLS Metadata Standard (http://www.naa.gov.au/govserv/agls) is crucial to the success of maintaining directories of information, services and resources to support their online access, as outlined below.
The initiative ‘build directories of information and other resources’ recognises that the effective discovery of required information and services requires details of Government information, services, staff and organisations to be stored and managed in electronic directories, using nationally agreed technical standards. This initiative includes building ‘green pages’ directories of government information resources like the Natural Resources Data Directory (natural resources sector) and the Health Information Resources Directory health sector) that will eventually provide a rapid and consistent means of locating government information. The development of these New South Wales directories is being coordinated with directories in other jurisdictions, as part of their own national sector-based programs, and the Online Council’s National Strategy for Government Online Services. This will ensure that the online information and services on other governments can be readily and consistently integrated under ServiceNSW.
The initiative ‘extend range of services available on ServiceNSW’ relies on a more structured approach to the maintenance of its services directory through (inter alia) the deployment of standard metadata. Currently, the maintenance of the ServiceNSW directory is a manual process that is largely dependent on agencies notifying OIT of their new, changed and deleted links via electronic or ordinary mail. OIT is often not notified of these changes in a timely manner. ServiceNSW is maintained by OIT staff through a process of testing existing links for currency as well as ‘trawling’ through agency Web sites to discover new links. These links also have to be analysed and categorised by OIT staff for appropriate placement on ServiceNSW. Phase 2 of ServiceNSW was launched on 4 November 1998 to address this situation. Phase 2 provides agencies with a new online maintenance facility including a metadata entry tool. Agencies can now maintain and browse their agency links held on ServiceNSW (implemented and planned), browse the implemented and planned links of other agencies, and be informed of services identified through community consultations. Only some AGLS metadata items are currently supported. However, in Phase 3 of ServiceNSW, it is planned to expand the use of AGLS and to support nationally endorsed subject and function thesari currently being addressed under the Online Council’s ‘National Strategy for Government Online Services’. ServiceNSW maintenance is described in the OIT guideline Provision of Information and Services Using the Internet at http://www.oit.nsw.gov.au.
The New South Wales Government has responded to the challenge of using online technologies at both the operational (ServiceNSW) and strategic (connect.nsw) levels. These initiatives add value to individual agency initiatives while at the same time, provide a platform for fundamentally reforming how government services are delivered.