The Australian government has put digital government and open data in the centre

With the change in Prime Minister to Malcolm Turnbull there was always likely to be a shift in the prominence of digital and IT within government.

The new administrative arrangements released earlier this week demonstrated this clearly, with the Digital Transition Office moving from the Communications portfolio to the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet and the Gov 2.0 and open data functions moving from Finance also into the DPC.

This means little to the Australian public, who simply expect government to do its job well, but means a great deal within government itself. It is a very strong signal to Secretaries and their teams that digital transformation and open data are serious priorities for the current government and need appropriate attention, resourcing and support.

What's also interesting is how these changes and others going on both publicly and behind closed doors in Canberra are about shifting the structures and cultures in Canberra towards a more collaborative, consultative and engaging one.

While signature government policies on asylum seekers, climate change and other key areas haven't changed under Turnbull, or at least not yet (a matter of significant commentary on social media at the moment), I would argue that the structural changes that have been started are far more significant in terms of shifting how the Australian government functions in the long term.

Historically while policies have changed regularly, and often quickly, as governments are elected or react to circumstance and public views, the public service had been slower to adapt to 21st Century realities, held back by its legislative design and shape, its obligations and the cultures it has evolved over the decades.

To reboot how government operates, enable more innovative and relevant policy approaches and allow in widespread adoption of modern business practice it was always going to take more than changes in policy settings - an elected government had to be willing to reach deep into the gullet of the public sector and change its operations in a fundamental way.

Few governments have been prepared to do this in more than a cosmetic way, due to the challenges in changing such a large and complex beast which was actually performing well by global standards. However the system has been fraying at the edges for some time, with capability losses and rigid legacy approaches making it harder and harder for elected governments to implement their policy and  create real positive change for Australians.

I have witnessed situations where agencies were incapable of implementing certain government policies, necessitating either shifts of responsibility or the creation of new agencies, as well as situations where Ministers and public servants found their capability to be productive was restricted, rather than enabled, by legacy IT systems and regulation which has grown like weeds over decades.

If the Turnbull government is serious about its intention to systemically change how government functions in Canberra, reshaping the role of the public sector in policy design, service delivery and rapid accountability, then one of its most significant legacies may be to future-proof the Australian government for the next century.

The structural change underway is not about rewinding government's clockwork, but about replacing cogs with computer chips and agile digital programs.

It's not just about connecting public servants to the wider community, but about letting the community lead and drive policy agendas, with the public sector as a expert facilitation support.

If this works it changes everything about how government works in Australia, though perceptual changes will take longer to be obvious to citizens.

These changes will take time. There will be fumbles and missteps and significant resistance both from internal and external players who enjoy the benefits of the failing status quo. Some resistance will be overt, but most will be covert, and often couched in supportive words but with no supportive activity. Some will be deliberate and calculated, but much will be instinctive or based on old world paradigms by people who simply haven't grasped the realities of our changing world - particularly outside the Canberra bubble.

However if these changes do not occur, rebound with a subsequent government or are given lip service only due to being 'too hard', Australia will face a more frightening scenario. A scenario in which our governance structures fail to support Australians to be competitive in our changing world. Where we become a sunset economy of resources and agriculture and our most talented scientists and computer specialists leave for greater opportunities offshore, leaving Australians to buy our own successes at retail prices.

Events will tell us how serious Turnbull's government will be - and how successful. However if the current government doesn't succeed in this systemic change, the big question will be, who could?

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Treat digital as a adjective, not a noun

Alun Probert (formerly of NSW government) has written a good piece on how sometime digital decisions are simply good business.

I think he's spot on about this, and about the danger of treating digital as a silver bullet.

Government is in the business of achieving great outcomes for society. Any government who fails to keep this central to their thinking is likely to find itself at the receiving end of significant pressure, ranging from social media complaints all the way up to violent revolution (depending on how far they've strayed).

Digital has a major role in achieving these great outcomes, however it isn't the only approach, nor always the best.

In my view digital should be considered a adjective, not a noun.

The goal is never to 'go digital' - that's just as ridiculous as suggesting that the goal is to 'go telephone' or 'go print'.

Digital, as an area, encompasses a range of tools and techniques that can help an organisation to achieve its goals more effectively or efficiently, but it should not replace those goals - government must be driven by social and citizen needs.

So where does this leave the notion of places like the 'Digital Transformation Office' - it certainly doesn't invalidate them. The goal is improving governance, improving citizen services, reducing costs, increasing compliance, improving outcomes. This is achieved through transforming what already exists, with a key toolkit being digital.

Provided the people leading and working in places like the Digital Transformation Office are clear on what their end goal is (which I believe they are), this can produce great outcomes for citizens, the country, politicians and government agencies themselves.

It's only when 'digital' becomes a noun - the goal, rather than part of the process - that the value is distorted and often lost.

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The DTO is hiring - and not in the traditional complex and clumsy public service way

Australia's Digital Transition Office (DTO) has finally lifted the covers on the personnel it's seeking to hire to fulfil its ambitious transformation agenda.

However, unlike traditional APS hiring, the DTO's positions vacant use modern corporate job titles and each job description clearly and in detail explains what applicants will be expected to do in the role.

There's no mention of APS level and no need for applicants to write a selection criteria essay based on standard public service capabilities and values.

In fact the DTO job descriptions look like a good example of how good modern companies recruit.

Hopefully as a result of this approach the DTO will attract a range of highly skilled people from across the private sector, people who normally would not apply to a government job due to the difficulty in doing so.

So if you're interested in working in an area where there's the potential to make enormous change and where you can understand from the job description what the role will involve - check out the DTO's positions vacant at www.dto.gov.au

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Digital Transition Office to make creating APIs mandatory for federal agencies

Last week the Digital Transition Office (DTO) released a draft of its API Design Guide for public review.

An API, or Application Programming Interface, is an approach that defines consistent methods of inputting and outputting data into a software system based on internet protocols. APIs are regularly used by Web 2.0 services as a standard way to connect to each other, share information and support seamless integrated functions (such as connecting your mailing list service with your survey tool).

The government already has a few APIs, generally around the edge of its services and functions - such as for the National Library's Trove service and the Pharmaceuticals Benefit Scheme.

However what is suggested in the DTO's post is that the DTO is looking to make it mandatory for government agencies to create APIs for all new services, and to consume their own APIs when delivering those services.

To people who know little about IT this might be a 'so what' moment. However if you think about the impact of this shift on how governments design services, who delivers them and how they are integrated with other services across agencies, this is a very big deal indeed.

AGIMO (Australian Government Information Management Office), as the former body established to guide federal technology use, always suffered from not having the ability to mandate certain techniques and approaches. It could cajole, suggest, recommend and advise agencies on good technology paths, and its position within Finance gave it a few teeth, however AGIMO never had the capability to mandate or enforce technology standards without the goodwill of every other major department's CIO.

So for the DTO to have a mandate in this area means it can design and enforce the practice, providing more standardisation across agencies and opening the door to knowledge and expertise sharing within government and certainty on how to engage agencies from outside.

One of the potential outcomes of making APIs mandatory is that 3rd parties outside of government will be able to deliver any new government service, mash together services from different agencies into new service approaches, or even combine government and private services into a single unified offering.

Anyone with a website and a little expertise could become a front-end for people seeking to access government services or information.

Equally, government agencies (whether local, state or federal) could connect federal services to their own, likewise potentially in a seamless way.

Theoretically there could be a single system across government for changing your address, or you could register a company, your ABN, for GST and for a state license for your business in the same transaction.

The DTO's draft design also says that agencies will have to consume their own APIs ('eat their own dogfood') when delivering their services.

This means agencies will have to build robust and effective APIs to support their service requirements, rather than build them as an afterthought (a very good thing) and it support the development of usable interfaces that aren't limited by a particular IT back-end approach.

Of course all of this relies on how well the mandate is executed - which leaves Paul Shetler's team with some challenges.

First they have to build recognition within government, as a mandate, agency CIOs can no longer go their own way, they need to work together with the DTO to establish appropriate standards that suit agency deliverables and services.

Secondly they will have to address any skills gaps. Few agencies have experience developing APIs - particularly where there's complex services that require them, or there's need for secure APIs.

Finally they'll have to keep all the cats herded. Ministers have a tendency to ask for things at short notice - such as new services or changes to existing ones. When agencies face these requests they often are limited in time, money and the skills to achieve them. Developing APIs will hardly be on the top of their priority list, they will be hardpressed just to get a service in place in time to meet the Minister's announcement deadline.

However despite all these challenges, the cause is a great one and could do more to transform how government IT operates than many more public steps.

If the DTO can pull this off, have agencies fall in line and have APIs start rolling off government IT 'production lines', it will have single-handedly justified its own existence and transformed how government works, even if it doesn't achieve anything else in the next few years.

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The Australian Government's entitlements issue is an opportunity for a Gov 2.0 solution

Practically everyone in Australia has followed the entitlements issue triggered by media reports of House of Representatives Speaker, and Liberal politician, Bronwyn Bishop's helicopter trip from Melbourne to Geelong over the last three weeks.

While at times other politicians were reluctant to criticise Bishop's expenses, on the basis that most politicians spend quite a bit of money in meeting the requirements of their positions, the public and media was almost universally negative towards the rolling revelations of expenses that seemed either not in the public interest, or more expansive than necessary in her role.

Now that Bishop has resigned her position as Speaker, with a decade of her expenditures being reviewed by the Department of Finance, and the Prime Minister has announced a new review of parliamentary expenditures and entitlements, including those of senior public servants, it's a good time to look at how digital technology could help Parliament and politicians to regain and build public trust as well as explain how and why politicians spend money in carrying out their duties.

There's a real opportunity to make it easier for politicians to submit expenses, improve the speed at which they're made public, and provide a mechanism for explaining the value of their legitimate expenditures, while making it much harder for inappropriate use of entitlements.

It's hard to believe, in today's world of electronic banking, myTax, myGov and online accounting platforms like Xero, that parliamentarians still have to, by and large, manually collect their receipts and invoices and physically complete paper forms to claim and verify their legitimate expenditures.

The technology to digitally photograph and submit expenses directly into an online system is widely available, as is the capability to digitally verify that all expenditures are accurate and appropriate.

It is also easy to then make these expenditures visible to whoever needs to see them, and to conduct various forms of analysis and reporting (both automated and manual) to identify and query exceptions (such as extremely high cost taxi fares) and, of course, to repay any out-of-pocket work expenses that a politician may have incurred.

While off-the-shelf tools are not really designed for the type of visibility expected of politicians, it wouldn't be too hard to develop a digital system for capturing, querying, reporting and paying these expenses, with the ability for the public and the media to view, in near-real time, all expenses incurred by parliamentarians in their day-to-day roles.

It wouldn't be much harder to allow expenses to be analysed and compared, as the media is already doing in articles like this, to understand the relative spending by MPs and, over time, by Ministers in the same or similar portfolios. This would provide for better comparisons and consideration over time.

What would be truly visionary would be to build in mechanisms for the public to flag certain expenditures and request an explanation, allowing politicians (and their teams) to explain what they are doing and why - improving the democratic compact between politicians and their constituents. This could be based on a minimum threshold of 'please explain' requests and require all requesters to be registered in the system to minimise the risk of nuisance enquiries.

On top of this, the system could provide information on entire itineraries and politicians and their teams could include information on the outcomes of their expenditures. For example an overseas study trip that resulted in a report to parliament and a change in legislation could have these outcomes and outputs linked to the expenditure, helping to verify how valuable it was.

Some might see the above type of approach invasive, taking the view that, once elected, a politician should simply be trusted to do the right thing.

While I can sympathise with this perspective, the reality is that it hasn't been shown to be effective in the real world. Some elected politicians have been shown to misuse or misunderstand their entitlements, and the damage this does to the integrity of the parliament is extreme.

Trust in politicians is low - not just because of questions over their expenditures, but also because of broken promises, failed programs and continual infighting.

Redeeming the reputation of parliament can't be achieved simply by expecting the public to let bygones be bygones and start trusting politicians again, it must be won through positive examples and actions - as Malcolm Turnbull demonstrated in his tram and train trip from Melbourne to Geelong.

Creating a digital parliamentary expenditures system with full near-real time transparency would be a strong visible sign that politicians are committed to serving Australia, not to their own enrichment.

It would also help dispel misunderstandings about how and why politicians spend money and improve the understanding of how expensive it can be to be a politician - particularly one with a large electorate or significant travel requirements.

Of course there's still the need to review the entitlements system itself - or at least adopt the recommendations from the last review of entitlements, however with some shrewd application of Gov 2.0 thinking and digital tools, Australians could be confident in how their politicians behave, not simply confident in the rules that they are expected to follow.

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Does Canberra already face a shortage of experienced government ICT executives?

The Mandarin reports that six significant federal agencies are currently seeking permanent Chief Information Officers, while both the ACT government and the Federal government's Digital Transition Office recently resorted to overseas hires to fill senior leadership roles requiring strong digital backgrounds.

Does this signify a shortage of senior digital and ICT talent in Australia (or at least of talent willing to work for government)?

Or is it merely a timing issue, representing a temporary hiccup in the supply of appropriately skilled executives?

While I'm sure the current shortage will be managed, it is worth considering in the light of Australia's declining number of ICT graduates, which represents a future challenge for both government and the private sector in attracting the best talent for future ICT and digital roles.

While increasingly Australia is off-shoring ICT work, or is able to buy in foreign digital services and talent, this disguises a deeper concern - that there may not be sufficient ICT and digitally trained and experienced locals in the future able to step into senior strategic roles.

If many entry and mid-level programming and digital positions are outsourced to overseas specialists, Australia won't be providing enough locals with appropriate career paths towards senior roles to support the talent development we need as a nation.

Now this isn't a new issue, the ICT industry has been shouting about it from the rooftops for at least the last three years.

However the ICT industry doesn't have the lobbying power in Canberra of other groups, from doctors to miners, and with most of Australia's senior politicians being digital immigrants at best, there's limited recognition of the scale of the issue or what positive steps can be taken to address it.

As society grows increasingly digital, the lack of strategic talent available for business and government is likely to become a significant drag on our economy and governance capability, placing us at a relative disadvantage against countries with a good talent pipeline and positive digital policies.

So while agencies are searching for those senior ICT executives they need today, they should consider how they can future-proof their talent pipelines into the future.

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We could resolve the electoral donations dilemma with a little digital thinking

One of the significant news stories in Australia this week is the revelation that Bill Shorten failed to correctly disclose a $40,000 electoral donation in a timely manner - breaching parliamentary requirements.

This is far from the first time a politician has done this, with repeated errors in declaring donations an ongoing issue for both major parties in Australian politics, and even affecting several minor parties and independents.

This has been called a crisis of trust, and one result has been calls for full public funding of elections - an approach that has been tried to some degree in a few other jurisdictions around the world.

Where full or near-full public funding has been attempted it has faced both legal controversies and difficulties in finding a formula that effectively funds established parties without closing the door on new electoral entrants or unfairly benefiting incumbent governments.

Australia already has partial public funding for elections, paid on a per vote basis. At the last election in September 2013 a total of $58.1 million was paid out, on the basis of $2.49 per first preference vote for candidates receiving at least 4% of the primary vote.

This 'flat rate' isn't necessarily a perfect solution either - it doesn't take into account the size of some of Australia's electorates (from Wentworth at 30 square km to Durack at 1,587,758 square km), or the significant differences in the number of voters per electorate (from 62,917 in Lingiari to Fraser with 143,564 voters). It is also open to manipulation by governments or major parties, as the amount per vote, or the threshold for payment, can be altered through legislation passed by a majority in both houses of parliament.

There's also other flaws with Australia's electoral donations laws, with donations often declared publicly through the Australian Electoral Commission 12 months or more after they are donated - often well after the election that the donors may be seeking to influence - leaving voters unable to consider the donations in the context of how they choose to vote.

Electoral donations are also often an area of contention for Australian state, territory and local governments, with varying laws in each jurisdiction, often modified by governments to suit their electoral needs. In particular NSW recently had over 10 Liberal MPs resign the party and several resign parliament due to irregularities as to who they received donations from, or roughly 25% of sitting members in their previous Liberal government.

There's also been cases of parties moving money between states or to and from their federal parties in order to evade stricter electoral declaration rules, and other kinds of shenanigans with the system between funds donated to individual politicians and to their parties.

It seems to me that a little digital thinking could resolve a large proportion of the issues with Australia's donation system, both ensuring donations are recorded and allocated appropriately and declared rapidly to the public.

Why not build a central donations website for collecting and declaring electoral donations for all parties.

The site, potentially called the Australian Electoral Donations System  (or AEDS for those who love acronyms), could provide a single electronic gateway for individuals of any political belief to donate funds from their bank account, credit card, paypal or other account to the candidate(s) and party(ies) of their choice. Every donation could be electronically transferred to the correct recipient and declared in real time as the electronic transfer occurs.

The AEDS could support both personal and corporate donations, including cash donations at events and gold coin donations, through becoming the official way of issuing tax receipts for all donations, making it unacceptable to simply hand candidates 'brown bags' of undeclared cash (a form of donation that is already illegal but hard to trace).

For easy event management, attendee management and an auction component could be built into the AEDS and a mobile app or web service used for recording donations (and attendance) at electoral events - mitigating the current issues with tracking and identifying donations through vehicles like Joe Hockey's 'North Shore Forum'.

It would become far easier for the public to see who has donated what to which parties - on a near-real-time basis, and the Australian Electoral Commission would be able to detect issues much faster - particularly where declared party income and expenditures don't match up. The AEDS may also help the Tax office to track the movement of funds and following up to verify that individuals and organisations are reporting their earnings and expenditures correctly, and even support police in identifying criminal activities linked to donations.

Done right this central donations website could even turn a profit - by taking a percentage of every donation towards its operating costs. Given that $10 million or more is given each year in donations to the federal parties (and that's only counting donations over the current $12,500 donation level), a 10% processing charge for using the AEDS could more than cover the ongoing costs of the service. This could be potentially a much lower charge when considering all the smaller donations (from $2 to $12,499) made at federal level and all of the donations to state and local politicians and parties.

The AEDS could be set-up as a start-up and run as an independent body - or even become a listed entity on the stock market (possibly expanding into offering similar electoral donations systems for other nations).

At worst case, the AEDS could be run under the auspices (or with board oversight) of the Australian Electoral Commission - though given their struggles to update their own technology I doubt the organisation has appropriate management to operate such a significant system.

Of course it would be a crazy entrepreneur to set up such a system without agreement and legislation by government, so the first step must be taken by parliament to recognise that the current electoral donation system is destroying trust and damaging the legitimacy of government - creating a strong perception, if not a reality, that our politicians are, if not for sale, at least for rent by the largest donors - be they corporations or organised crime.

Would our parliament countenance such a move?

I hope so. Removing the difficulty of managing electoral donations from parties, and the embarrassment politicians face when someone in their office forgets or incorrectly declares a donation, or they accidentally take money from an illegal donor, this type of independently-run electoral donation system would both make the lives of politicians easier and reduce their stress levels, while potentially lengthening their careers.

I've thought a great deal about how this system could work, and the problems it may face, so if anyone in government wants to discuss the idea further, drop me a line.

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It's not been quiet on Australia's Government 2.0 front

While I've been very tardy at posting this year, due to busyness, significant life and work changes and a general lassitude brought on from blogging for so many years, the Government 2.0 scene in Australia has continued to progress.

While some of the faces and names have changed, and the public sector talks more about innovation, 'digital government' and 'digital transformation' than about Government 2.0, the overall direction remains the same - increasing use of modern digital tools and techniques to improve the operation and outcomes of government.

In the last six months we've seen a number of major initiatives take shape.

At a federal level the big news is the Digital Transition Office (DTO), modeled on the UK Government Digital Service (GDS) and the US Digital Service (USDS), was formed early this year with seconded staff and officially launched on 1 July with a budget of $254.7 million over four years. The DTO knuckled down to work even before it had a CEO or budget, and some of its activities and thinking is being shared on the DTO blog - with much more to come.

Recently the new CEO of the DTO was announced (replacing seconded SES officers), with the government choosing an overseas candidate who had developed a similar approach before - Paul Shetler, formerly Director of the GDS.

While it's sad there's little in the way of Australian talent ready at this level, it's good the government has taken the step of appointing someone with the experience and nous to take on this difficult public sector role.

Also in Canberra, the Australian Public Service recently launched Public Sector Innovation Month, an event that has grown from strength to strength over the last few years. While I was interstate for the launch (on 6 July), I'm involved with a number of the scheduled events, and will try to provide some insights into the mood and activities throughout July.

DFAT also recently ran a wildly successful internal idea-sourcing process. Over 40% of DFAT staff participated, with 392 ideas and 16,000 votes submitted. A number of the ideas are being progressed, with a lucky few funded and recognised at a whole-of-DFAT event. I'm hopeful other agencies will take note of this approach and it's well designed process (facilitated by Collabforge) and consider ways to unlock the ideas and experience of their (highly experienced) staff.

Nationally this month saw the return of GovHack, with 31 sites and around 2,000 registered participants across Australia and New Zealand. With 276 completed projects across 400 teams, this has been the biggest and best organised GovHack (according to the anecdotal reports I've received) so far.

I spend GovHack in the Melbourne site, managing and mentoring teams for the Victorian Government's challenge, Taking government services digital. This was the first time GovHack had offered a challenge to hack government without the need to mash-up open data and was an exciting pilot for involving the public in digital service design.

Given that Melbourne, as the largest venue for GovHack in 2015, had more hackers and projects than all of GovHack in 2012, the growth of this event has been staggering, yet well managed.

The last few months have also seen the initiation of Service Victoria, an agency established within Victoria's Department of Premier and Cabinet (DPC), to take on the redevelopment of high volume and high cost Victorian government services in a collaborative way with the agencies that 'own' those transactions, as well as the integration of data.vic.gov.au into DPC to provide it with a more central outlook and greater cloud.

The WA government has taken firm steps towards an open data portal, building on some of the great work done by local agencies and volunteers, while the ACT has rationalised and centralised its focus on innovation to improve effectiveness and attempted to hire a Chief Digital Officer (albeit unsuccessfully).

NSW has continue to move slowly towards greater adoption of open data, while Queensland and South Australia are seeing a slight pause as they rethink their ICT strategies and political foci.

The Northern Territory and Tasmania still lag behind other states, though renewed attempts are underway in Hobart to reinvigorate a move towards greater use of digital across government.

Larger local governments, particularly Melbourne and Brisbane, are pushing forward with strong digital agendas, while outside of government the OKFN have moved past their establishment phase and is beginning to support real change, while Code for Australia,a newer group, is beginning to flex its wings and create partnerships with governments to embed innovative Fellows to push along digital initiatives.

Across the board there's still limited political direction and focus on the value digital can have for government, although both Turnbull at federal level and the latest Victorian Government have demonstrated clear commitment and advocacy on digital's power to improve outcomes.

The role of the community in encouraging, supporting, and occasionally chastising, governments to become more digital remains huge, and we're now beginning to see agencies recognise the need for digital leads, separate to existing executives. This is a huge opportunity for anyone who wants to work in a senior level in digital while achieving lasting social and economic good for the nation, states or local communities, and will continue to grow as more agencies identify their lack.

So overall, Australia is still very much in the early stages of the digital transformation of government, with pockets of maturity helping to bring lagging areas up to speed.

There's a long way to go before government is truly digitally enabled - inside and out - but most governments now have their feet firmly planted on the road and recognise the value that striding forward will bring.

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Intrapreneurship and the art of digital transformation - improving how government operates

It's been a tough week to resume blogging about digital government, egovernance and Gov 2.0, with the attention of the media, public, public service and politicians fixed on politics rather than the operations of government.

However the nature of government, and of humans in general, is that politics is always a key element in getting stuff done (or undone as the case may be).

When it comes to improving how government operates and serves the public, in my view the goal or outcome of Gov 2.0 (whatever buzzword is used to describe the topic), the political element must always be considered part of the fabric of the process.

Little gets done without the authorisation and example of management, or at least a blind eye from those at the top allowing gray space in laws and policies for changes to creep through.

The discussion and debate over whether (and how much) innovation can occur in government, whether agencies can transform themselves to meet citizen expectations while reducing costs - as typified by the concept of Digital Transformation - thus must consider the political elements as well as the practical.

Do the political masters of the public service support Digital Transformation and what does 'support' mean in practice? Do the appointed heads and senior executives of government agencies embrace and champion the change, despite potential disruptions to their orderly structures and ongoing policy challenges? Do the middle management understand completely the vision and goals of the process, and can it be aligned with their practical day to day struggles to allocate the right people and resources to meet the goals of their agencies? And are the officers who undertake many of the roles requires to keep the machinery of government operating mentally and physically prepared to change their habits in pursuit of change?

Aligning these factors is a challenge at an agency level, at a whole-of-government level it becomes even more so, but it is a challenge that public servants face after every election, Ministerial shuffle or machinery of government change.

Indeed often the challenge is that there's simply too much and too frequent change in government for officers to become familiarised with the last set of changes before being thrown into new ones, with the leadership - political and operational - finding it hard to bed down new systems before being confronted with new ones,

This blend of stability, structure and chaos into which the announcement of the creation of a Digital Transformation Office has been made, at a time when the nation is discussing questions of national leadership and the public sector is still bedding down the machinery of government changes of 12 months ago, and the Ministerial changes of last month may thus seem a very challenging environment in which to achieve success.

Having come from an entrepreneurial environment, and having successfully intrapreneured in government, participating in and running teams of technologists and business professionals, my view is that the current moment in government is possibly the best time and opportunity for groups seeking to create change that we've seen in a few years.

Innovation flourishes when the status quo is uncertain and malleable, not within environments where structure and objectives are clear cut and certain.

When organisations are clear on their objectives, have optimum structures to achieve them and have leadership focused on the task at hand, innovation is kept to the margins, providing incremental improvements to maintain the status quo.

But when the status is not quo, when change is the norm and the goals are less clear, innovation can be bolder and  more revolutionary. It becomes possible to consider radical options, to allow a greater risk of failure in the pursuit of larger outcomes and success.

For digital transformation to succeed it must be possible to link together disparate systems and thinking from across government, to smash through existing silos and processes when considering new designs for policy creation and delivery and rebuild the mechanisms that underpin the operations of government not just in new forms, but in new ways.

There's no better time to attempt this then when existing silos are fragile and the pressure of falling budgets, personnel and loss of expertise is mounting.

The challenge will be to gain the advocacy and mindshare required to drive through the transformation agenda alongside the competing priorities that agencies now face.

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Back on the blog

I've had a two month break from blogging over summer due to a range of other things going on in my life.

I'll be getting back into the habit of blogging over the next few weeks to catch up on all the awesome - and not so awesome - things happening in the Gov 2.0 / egovernance sphere in Australia and internationally.

With the Prime Minister and Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull recently having announced the creation of a Digital Transformation office, albeit an unfunded one, and the Prime Minister even more recently characterising social media as 'electronic graffiti' (a matter already taken up by The Conversation and other media, including on social media itself), there's already plenty of interesting topics to discuss in the public sector digital sector.

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Where is the use of digital by Australian governments headed? An interview with John Wells

This is the third in a series of interviews I'm doing as part of Delib Australia's media partnership with CeBIT in support of GovInnovate. I'll also be livetweeting and blogging the conference on 25-27 November.

View other posts in this series.

As one of the national organisers of Innovation GovCamp Australia, founder of GovCampus and producer of Gov 2.0 Radio, John Wells is one of Australia’s leading advocates for public sector innovation. John is also a co-director of Cofluence, the content partner of Hannover Fairs /CeBIT GovInnovate annual summit.

I spoke with John, who is chairing a stream at GovInnovate, to discover where he thinks Australian government is heading in the digital area.

John said that Australia was experiencing a period of rapid take-up and acceleration in open data. “In the last 12 months alone there’s been a seven-fold increase in the amount of data available in data.gov.au, and events such as GovHack are growing rapidly in size and participation by not only hackers, but also government data custodians.”

Internationally, John says, there are also changes afoot. “Across western countries the role of digital in government is subtly shifting towards a more evolved focus on public sector renewal, beyond the traditional approaches to reform.”

“We’ve seen an evolution from the connectivity of eGovernment to the public conversation of Gov 2.0 and now through to the collaborative and participative opportunities that open government presents.”

He believes the future of politics and public administration will be less about left vs right and more about open vs closed and that government organisations as well as citizens must be prepared to capitalise on these collaborative opportunities.

John said that GovInnovate 2014 will be a good opportunity to tease out this change and the impact it will have on the role of Australia’s public sector.

“Having both Mark Headd from Philadelphia and Dominic Campbell from London at the conference mean that the panel discussions will benefit from both a European and North American perspective.”

“It will give participants an opportunity to contrast national programs across the US with local government initiatives in Britain, discussing topical civic approaches from Code for America through to NESTA’s work in the UK.”

John also believes that there’s an opportunity to build on the public sector’s interest in innovation, building on the enthusiasm to adopt more strategic and sophisticated approaches.

“In a public sector context innovation can suffer from being undervalued or viewed in cliqued terms, such as ‘light bulb moments’. Digital has a large role to play in supporting this evolution, particularly in helping people to step beyond their comfort zones.”

John says that digital touches many aspects of an agency and has become a leading driver of innovation.

“As we learnt at the recent national GovCamp on innovation, digital touches on and impacts leadership, program design, engagement of communities and stakeholders, on collaboration across the silos of the public sector and between the public sector, business and civil society.”

Because of this, John feels it is increasingly important for public servants to step beyond what is safe and familiar, challenging themselves to test existing practice and experiment with new approaches to governance.

“What I hear from public sector leaders is that it is important for all of us to learn how to hear about and engage with topics and learning opportunities that are unfamiliar, that address areas outside their personal work scope and comfort zones, as we live in an era where increasingly solutions are found through interdisciplinary practices.”

He believes that GovInnovate will be an opportunity for participants to challenge themselves in this way. “Coming to the conference with a mindset of valuing diverse experiences will help ensure that participants take away something new that will refresh their perspective of what is possible.”

You’ll be able to hear more from John at GovInnovate on 25-27 November in Canberra.

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