ATSIC Information initiative

Jeremy Hodes

Background

This paper discusses how ATSIC is strategically managing its information resources to add value to the organisation and improve services to its stakeholders. Established in 1989 as a statutory commonwealth government agency, ATSIC, the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission, is the nationally representative organisation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. Its vision is that of:

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples freely exercising our legal, economic, social, cultural and political rights.[1]

The Commission comprises an elected and administrative arm, with the 18 member ATSIC Board representing some 460 000 Indigenous Australians.[2] Its 1,300 staff is involved in policy formulation and program development and administration through the national office in Canberra, seven state offices located in state and territory capital cities, and 28 regional offices throughout Australia.

ATSIC Information requirements

ATSIC's role is complex, for not only do we need information to support our program delivery role, we also have a key role in Indigenous social, cultural and economic advocacy, including ongoing monitoring all commonwealth, state, territory and local government activities that impact our constituency. Therefore, information is critical to ATSIC to ensure we can best meet the disparate needs of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. This information is required:

To allow for informed decision making, supported by evidence and facts
To justify and validate decisions
To make valid comparisons
To enable planning
For effective evaluation and review
To measure performance
This information comes in many formats and guises:
Statistical
Financial
Procedures and policies
Decisions
Comparisons
Key Indicators
Reports

Like all organisations, ATSIC needs to make the best use of its information resources. The aim is to improve our information capability, that is, to develop our total information resources and our ability to govern, manage and use them. However, not all information is the same. In ATSIC, we want to use information that is:

Accurate (verified and credible)
Relevant (adds value)
Current (is up-to-date)
cost-effective (business case)
Useable (can be reported on)
Re-usable (able to be shared)

This involves a sea change in how we view and use information:

Collecting information for specific purposes and supplying information only when needed. Adopting a demand side model instead of a supply side one
Recognising that information is not free, that there are significant costs associated with collecting, storing and using information. This must be recognised and budgeted for
The emphasis is on retrieving, adding value and using information, rather than merely storing it

To effectively plan, manage and use our information resources and improve our information capability, we need to ensure that:

The demand for improved information outcomes is business unit focussed and driven
They are aligned with the objectives and directions of our Corporate Plan
They meet defined and agreed business priorities and requirements
They address the legitimate needs of all ATSIC stakeholders (internal and external).
We have appropriate supporting network infrastructure

Our Chief Information Officer, Max Devereux, believed we could best achieve this through a co-ordinated ATSIC-wide approach, and so the ATSIC Information Initiative was born.

ATSIC Information Initiative

Establishment

ATSIC established the Information Initiative, in 2001, to provide an effective means for strategically making and implementing better decisions on the governance, management and use of our information resources. We setup a small team within ATSIC's Information Services Office, to work though the issues, formulate guidelines and timelines, and develop a submission instrument.

We knew that support and endorsement from senior management would be vital to the success of the initiative, and we achieved this by establishing an Information Management Executive Committee (IMEC). This committee, chaired by the deputy Chief Executive Officer, had, amongst other tasks, carriage for ATSIC's information technology and infrastructure requirements, and overseeing the Information Initiative and endorsing or not endorsing submission requests.

The Information Initiative included 'whole-of-ATSIC' endorsement, prioritisation, budget approval and planning processes, in a continuous improvement environment. It provided mechanisms for achieving well-managed balance between ATSIC's strategic objectives and directions and the need for flexibility and responsiveness to short-term priorities and imperatives.

We wanted the emphasis to be on information needs, rather than simply hardware and software requirements, and for business areas to state their information requirements in a generic sense only. Only after IMEC endorsed their proposals would we sit down with business units to discuss specific software application solutions, and whether or not we would use existing software, build in in-house or contract out.

Parallel with the establishing of the Information Initiative was the creation of the ATSIC Reporting Initiative. Its main objective was to provide easy access to information through the development of appropriate reporting formats. This included evaluating, acquiring and implementing an ETL (Extract, Transform and Load) tool to enable delivery of tightly focussed, easier to use, fast loading, and customised reports.

We decided that requests for information improvements would be called for every six months, aligned to the budget cycle, with the inaugural round to commence in February 2002.

Round one

We sent letters outlining the process to over 100 managers within the organisation, informing them that the first round of the Information Initiative had commenced. All managers received a booklet explaining the process, while we also built an Intranet site containing comprehensive information about the initiative. We invited the managers to a series of briefing sessions, in person or through videoconference, where we further explained the initiative and fielded questions.

The response was surprisingly good, and we received a large number of expressions of interest. We asked those business units wanting to put in an information improvement request to complete and submit a submission form. The submission form identifies and explains the request and allows for informed decision making by IMEC.

For submissions to be successful, we recommended they should be:

Applicable to more than one business area or region
Supported by a strong business case
Strongly supported by ongoing involvement and commitment from the relevant business area

Unfortunately, the submission document was a complex, 19-page form that, despite our assistance, many found unwieldy, time-consuming and difficult to complete. Its sections included an executive summary, recommendations, business context, business requirement, proposed improvement, relationship to ATSIC, business and information value to ATSIC, Financial and human resource costs, risks of undertaking and not undertaking the proposed improvement, timeframe, priority, information partnership, prerequisites, limitations, impacts, compliance, performance indicators, project management, change management and funding options. Despite its complexity, we ended up receiving 12 completed submissions.

IMEC considered these submissions in May 2002, endorsing nine of them, a 75 per cent success rate. Successful submissions included:

Redeveloping the ATSIC Intranet to implement accurate, relevant and timely content, and create a consistent style to develop a common ATSIC brand, look and feel
Analysis of Indigenous housing based on the 2001 Census data
Developing a contract administration and management information database
Acquisition, storage and access to the Indigenous component of the 2001 Census data
Using 2001 Census information and other program based data to develop a series of maps, at the national, state and ATSIC region level, to portray 'Indigenous Australia Today'

Following the successful conclusion of round one, we decided to evaluate the Information Initiative using an external reviewer.[3] The review objectives included:

To review the inaugural round of the ATSIC Information Initiative
Make appropriate recommendations on its effectiveness and suggestions for future improvements
Ensure that the Information Initiative submission process is a mechanism for delivering Information Initiative strategic objectives, not an end in itself [4]

The review made several recommendations on improving the process, and overall its findings were favourable:

The inaugural round of the Information Initiative appears successful at this time and should be recognised as a very positive and forward thinking activity. The scarcity of information available in my research regarding this type of process suggests that ATSIC is at the forefront of developments in this aspect of information management and is likely to reap the rewards in years to come[5]

The review recommended improvements to the submission format, considering it an overly complex and challenging document. While recognising that completing the submission form forced business areas to think through their information requirements, we needed to strike a balance, creating a submission form that was not so challenging that it discouraged them submitting at all. What we wanted were submissions to assist IMEC evaluate proposals, not a hurdle for business units to overcome. We therefore extensively revised and simplified the submission format, halving the length. [6]

We also took the opportunity to develop a procedure manual to assist business units better understand the Information Initiative and guide them through the submission process, and wrote up simple explanatory notes which we sent to managers and posted on the website.

Round two

The second round of the information cycle commenced in August 2002. Again, we conducted briefing sessions, by videoconference and in person. Compared to the briefing sessions we undertook in the first round, we found it easier in these sessions to explain the concepts and get the information across. This was due to many of the managers having become familiar with the process in the previous round, and the simplified material we presented to them.

We received fewer responses for this round, which did not surprise us, for:

It followed on from the inaugural round, for which there was a pent-up demand.
It being a mid-year round, business units were aware that funding opportunities were limited, with some electing to hold over their submissions for the next, pre-budget round.
The anticipated appointment of a new Chief Executive Officer (CEO), ATSIC elections and a proposed ATSIC review had implications for business units' information requirements. Some therefore decided to defer submitting, preferring to wait for a future round.

IMEC considered eight submissions at its December meeting, endorsing, or partially endorsing, five of them. Successful submissions included:

Provision of a statistical reporting facility for the Electronic Register of Indigenous Corporations System
The implementation of a purpose built electronic information archival environment for ageing information from SAP and Microsoft Exchange environments
Implementation of electronic forms driven workflow tools

Future directions

The appointment, in August 2002, of our new CEO, Wayne Gibbons, has resulted in him taking an active and ongoing interest in the Information Initiative, and recommending we implement significant improvements in line with the ongoing reform to ATSIC administrative structures.

Beginning in 2003, the Information Initiative now supports three types of requests:

Information application and development requests
Information technology infrastructure requests
Miscellaneous and low cost information application and development requests

The type of information request will determine how it is processed. However, in each case a submission form will need to be completed. The Information Initiative continues to be an ongoing process, but the time-lines now differ, depending on the type of request:

Information application and development requests will be considered as required by the newly formed National Policy Committee, which meets fortnightly
Information technology infrastructure request now come under the aegis of the Information Initiative, and will be considered by IMEC at its bi-annual meetings
Miscellaneous information enhancements and low cost information application and development requests will be considered by the CEO as required

The benefits of this new arrangement are many, including:

Mainstreaming of information requirements and requests. These requirements are now an integral component of the policy, program and corporate initiatives they support.
Including infrastructure requests as part of the Information Initiative process. This should result in improved management, co-ordination and utilisation of our information technology infrastructure assets across our network
A stronger focus on information needs means information requirements are increasingly business unit driven
Improved mechanisms for the governance and co-ordination of our information assets
Small non-urgent submissions can be considered and acted on in a more timely manner

ATSIC, through the Information Initiative, has established a proven, ongoing mechanism for the effective management and use of its information resources. Successfully implemented in 2002 with the support of senior management, it has developed to become an important enabler for an organisation that is increasingly aware of the importance of its information resources and the direct impact that the quality, availability and use of them has on its performance.

Jeremy Hodes, Executive Officer, Information Initiative, Information Services Office, ATSIC, PO Box 17, Woden ACT 2606 jeremy.hodes@atsic.gov.au

Appendix

Submission Document

Completing the submission document ensures that requirements and issues are addressed, allowing for informed decision making by IMEC, the National Policy Committee or the CEO. The relevant business area is responsible for completing the submission document. Detailed information on how to complete it is contained in the submission document with the required information grouped under the following headings:

Executive Summary
This allows the IMEC, the National Policy Committee or the CEO to identify the proposed initiative and its value, costs and risks to ATSIC. It includes information about the initiative, its implementation, timeframe and cost.

Initiative
This is a detailed description of the initiative to assist IMEC, the National Policy Committee or the CEO, understand the initiative and come to an informed decision.

Outline Business Case
Building the business case comprises two areas: The relationship to ATSIC - is it consistent with ATSIC's outcomes, outputs, business functions and processes, and Value to ATSIC - will it contribute to improved performance, outputs and outcomes.

Cost to ATSIC
What is the financial and human resource costs, including ongoing expenses?

Risks for ATSIC
What are the risks to ATSIC of undertaking/not undertaking this initiative?

Impacts
This section identifies potential internal and external impacts.

Timeframe
What is the timeframe to implement the initiative?

Performance Indicators
Performance indicators are required to identify how you will measure the success or failure of the initiative.

Funding Options
This section identifies available funding options.

Information Partnership
This section identifies the various stakeholders, including the business delegate, submission co-ordinator, users, suppliers and providers

[1] ATSIC Corporate Plan, 2001-2004. Canberra, ATSIC, 2001, p. 5

[2] Australian Bureau of Statistics. 4705.0 Population Distribution, Indigenous Australians (based on 2001 census data). (http://www.abs.gov.au/Ausstats/abs@.nsf/lookupMF/14E7A4A075D53A6CCA2569450007E46C)

[3] Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission: Review of the Information Initiative. Canberra, Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, July 2002.

[4] Ibid., p. 1

[5] Ibid., p. 5

[6] For information on the sections in the revised submission document, see Appendix. 1

Last revised: 13 October 2003