ICT STRATEGY

95 Mr HAMILTON-SMITH (Waite—Leader of the Opposition) (30 September 2008). What is the status of the whole of government ICT strategy?

The Hon. K.O. FOLEY (Port Adelaide—Deputy Premier, Treasurer, Minister for Industry and Trade, Minister for Federal/State Relations): I have been provided the following information:

The South Australian Government's ICT strategy document Ask Just Once focuses on the use of technology to transform Government service delivery to citizens, business and the community. The Strategy identifies four priorities to be addressed during the period 2007-12. The current status of the priorities is as follows:

Channels and Access—is concerned with simplifying access to Government, creating a single entry point for customers and a single information portal for most frontline public servants. The key initiative for this priority is the development of a 'customer centric' approach to the provision of Government information and services. The approach will bring together a range of across-government, theme-based services, removing the need for customers to navigate multiple Departments to locate the information and services they require. A roadmap for the implementation of the approach has been developed by Gov 3, the United Kingdom based organisation responsible for facilitating similar initiatives in the UK, Hong Kong and Croatia. The first themes under development are 'Transport', 'Ageing', 'Selling to Government' and 'Training'.

Strengthening the Frontline—is about increasing the productivity of public servants and reducing the financial and time impacts on citizens and business when interacting with Government. There a number of activities underway or complete including:

Collaboration with other jurisdictions and tiers of government to develop national strategies and frameworks that will enable better support for national service delivery;

Drafting of a strategic plan for the management and application of Geographic Information Systems (GIS); and

Strategic procurement initiatives to minimise ICT infrastructure costs, all ICT procurement contracts undergoing mid-term reviews to identify lessons that can be applied to future procurement projects.

Shared Services—is concerned with the establishment of key elements that are necessary for the success of the Shared Services initiative. The following activities have been progressed:

The ICT Board has endorsed the Australian Government Architecture Reference Models as the basis for the government's ICT architectures, this having strong links to the well-established Federal Enterprise Architecture Framework deployed in the United States.

A Hosting Facilities Position Paper has been developed to guide the progressive consolidation of government computing installations into fewer sites. This will improve efficiency and business continuity while reducing the government's carbon footprint.

Three IT firms have been appointed to a preferred hosting services panel, this being the first step in improving the government's approach to ICT hosting services and the provision of data centre capacity.

Agile government—addresses the need to effect structural reform so that the government can achieve its aspirations for better and more cost effective services. The ICT clustering of agencies that serve similar customer needs has been initiated. Active ICT clusters are operating in the Health, Education and Resources/Infrastructure sectors. A paper addressing the government's current and future needs for a skilled ICT workforce has been approved by the ICT Board.