Contribute now to Australia's Open Government Partnership National Action Plan

Now that Australians are heading out of holiday mode, it's a good time for a reminder about the Australian Government's process to become a member of the global Open Government Partnership (OGP), through developing our first OGP National Action Plan.

If you've not heard of the Open Government Partnership, in a nutshell it's an international group of governments and civil society organisations committed to progressing open and transparent governance in the 69 participating nations through a cooperative and supportive process.

Each nation makes a commitment to improve their national government's openness and transparency through a statement by their government, supported this through a two-yearly National Action Plan (NAP) with priority activities relevant to the nation's development stage. These NAPs must be developed cooperatively between government and civil society through an active consultation process.

Nations are assessed annually on their NAP progress through an independent process, with their achievements and shortfalls highlighted internationally.

Australia was invited to become a founding member of the OGP back in 2011, however deferred this decision until 2013, and then delayed it further after a change in government.

The current Prime Minister re-committed to the process late in 2015 and restarted the process to become an OGP member.

I ran a series of Information Sessions across Australia's east coast about this process, funded by the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, and the presentation used through these sessions is below.

OGP Australia Information Session presentation from Craig Thomler

Currently Australia is consulting on the commitments that should be prioritised in our first National Action Plan, with Australians invited to provide ideas through the wiki (ogpau.wikispaces.com) or via email to ogp@pmc.gov.au

So if you'd like to see improvements in how open and transparent federal government is in Australia, please contribute via the channels above.

This stage of the consultation is open until the end of February, so don't wait too long!

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It's nice to see government agencies share with each other

One of the most frustrating and, I think, silliest things I found when working in Australian government agencies was how almost every department, agency and statutory body developed almost all of its own policies, procedures, software and tools.

There was often 'undercover' sharing - where people in agencies would ask their colleagues in others for copies of their whatever policy, so they could craft one just like it - however there was no central repository where public servants could go and browse standard templated policy documents or access software code developed by other agencies to resolve certain common issues.

At one stage I actively looked at building a research directory for government - either from within an agency, or as a third-party site - where public servants could list the research their agencies had undertaken and the research they needed to access or undertake, so that it could be effectively shared between departments, saving money in re-running research and informing policy decisions.

This attempt didn't get off the ground as senior management strongly felt they had no obligation to share information on the research work conducted with 'THEIR' public dollars with other agencies - even the fact that they'd undertaken it in the first place.

Fortunately most of those senior managers have now retired (literally), and the new crop coming through are realising that, cash and time constrained as they are, that fighting over which agency 'owns' a specific policy, custom software or research that they commissioned gets in the way of productivity, efficiency and cost-effectiveness.

One of the outcomes has been the latest Australian Government whole-of-government website, GovShare.

GovShare had been talked about for nearly five years and has now finally arrived as a central location for agencies to share their work with other agencies to build standardisation and save money across the public service.

As the About page states, GovShare has been designed to support and promote collaboration across the Australian Public Service, and as an online resource it has been provided to APS agencies and their staff to:

• publish, discover and access a broad range of artefacts used within the APS, such as frameworks, guidelines, policies, standards, architectural models, open source software and a host of other ICT and business artefacts; 
• explore APS ICT services and solutions through the Agency Online Services Database and Agency Solutions Database; 
• find skilled people across the APS with expertise in particular fields or products; and 
• contribute to online discussions using the forum.

This type of sharing helps save money and time in government. It allows agencies to collaborate to design the best possible policies, guidelines and software and then customise it if needed for their specific needs.

While the benefits of the site won't necessarily be clearly visible outside of government circles, the efficiencies it will support will help agencies focus their resources on achieving the goals of government rather than on endlessly recreating the policies already in place elsewhere in government.

The site already contains nearly 2,000 'artefacts' for review, reuse and adaptation, and hopefully over the next few years this will swell as more agencies become active contributors as well as takers from the site.

It will also hopefully expand beyond its ICT roots into other business areas - allowing agencies to share standard communication strategy templates, HR policies, procurement guidebooks and financial guidelines - tools and resources that help public servants understand and abide by the rules the government sets in these areas.

Hopefully the site will expand beyond federal government as well, bringing state and local into the fold. These governments often face the same challenges, often with fewer resources, and GovShare could have a large role to play in reducing costs at all levels of government in Australia.

Ultimately it would be wonderful to see 'packages' of policies and guidelines that a newly created agency or statutory body can simply pick up, adapt and use for their operations.

This would be similar to the 'agency on a USB stick' concept that I've been talking about for several years around a set of software platforms and settings that would allow an agency to put in place a solid set of operational systems in a very short time.

However it is, as yet, early days for GovShare. Its success relies on three things, ongoing support from the department hosting it (Finance), active participation by agencies in 'gifting' their work to a common store for other agencies to access and the political will and nous to not kill the program before it bears fruit.

I hope Govshare will succeed, and think the omens are good. Its journey over the next five years will be interesting to watch.

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Rethinking government IT to support the changing needs of government

We recently saw a change in the federal government in Australia, with a corresponding reorganisation of agency priorities and structures.

Some departments ceased to exist (such as Department of Regional Australia), others split (DEEWR into two departments, Education and Employment) and still others had parts 'broken off' and moved elsewhere (Health and Ageing, which lost Ageing to the (renamed) Department of Social Services).

This isn't a new phenomenon, nor is it limited to changes in government - departments and agencies are often reorganised and reconfigured to serve the priorities of the government of the day and, where possible, create efficiencies - saving money and time.

These adjustments can result in the movement of tens, hundreds or even thousands of staff between agencies and regular restructures inside agencies that result in changing reporting lines and processes.

While these reorganisations and restructures - Machinery of Government changes (or MOGs) as they are known - often look good on paper, in reality it can take time for efficiencies to be realised (if they are actually being measured).

Firstly there's the human factor - changing the priorities and allegiances of staff takes time and empathy, particularly when public servants are committed and passionate about their jobs. They may need to change their location, workplace behaviours and/or learn a new set of processes (if changing agency) while dealing with new personalities and IT systems.

There's the structural factor - when restructured, merged or demerged public sector organisations need to revisit their priorities and reallocate their resources appropriately. This can extend to creating, closing down or handing over functions, dealing with legal requirements or documenting procedures that an agency now has to follow or another agency has taken over.

Finally there's the IT factor - bringing together or separating the IT systems used by staff to enable them to do their work.

In my view the IT component has become the hardest to resolve smoothly and cost-effectively due to how government agencies have structured their systems.

Every agency and department has made different IT choices - Lotus Notes here, Microsoft Outlet there, different desktop environments, back-end systems (HR and Finance for example), different web management systems, different security frameworks, programming environments and outsourced IT partners.

This means that moving even a small group of people from one department to another can be a major IT undertaking. Their personal records, information and archival records about the programs they work on, their desktop systems, emails, files and more must be moved from one secure environment to another, not to mention decoupling any websites they manage from one department's web content management system and mirroring or recreating the environment for another agency.

On top of this are the many IT services people are now using - from social media accounts in Facebook and Twitter, to their email list subscriptions (which break when their emails change) and more.

On top of this are the impacts of IT service changes on individuals. Anyone who has worked in a Lotus Notes environment for email, compared to, for example, Microsoft Outlook, appreciates how different these email clients are and how profoundly the differences impact on workplace behaviour and communication. Switching between systems can be enormously difficult for an individual, let alone an organisation, risking the loss of substantial corporate knowledge - historical conversations and contacts - alongside the frustrations of adapting to how different systems work.

Similarly websites aren't websites. While the quaint notion persists that 'a website' is a discreet entity which can easily be moved from server to server, organisation to organisation, most 'websites' today are better described as interactive front-ends for sophisticated web content management systems. These web content management systems may be used to manage dozens or even hundreds of 'websites' in the same system, storing content and data in integrated tables at the back-end.

This makes it tricky to identify where one website ends and another begins (particularly when content, templates and functionality is shared). Moving a website between agencies isn't as simple as moving some HTML pages from one server to another (or reallocating a server to a new department) - it isn't even as easy as copying some data tables and files out of a content management system. There's enormous complexity involved in identifying what is shared (and so must be cloned) and ensuring that the website retains all the content and functionality required as it moves.

Changing IT systems can be enormously complex when an organisation is left unchanged, let alone when when teams are changing agencies or where agencies merge. In fact I've seen it take three or more years to bring people onto an email system or delink a website from a previous agency.

As government increasingly digitalises - and reflecting on the current government's goal to have all government services delivered online by 2017 - the cost, complexity and time involved to complete  these MOG changes will only increase.

This risks crippling some areas of government or restricting the ability of the government of the day to adjust departments to meet their policy objectives - in other words allowing the (IT) tail to wag the (efficient and effective government) dog.

This isn't a far future issue either - I am aware of instances over the past five years where government policy has had to be modified to fit the limitations of agency IT systems - or where services have been delivered by agencies other than the ones responsible, or simply not delivered due to agency IT restrictions, costs or issues.

Note that this isn't an issue with agency IT teams. These groups are doing their best to meet government requirements within the resources they have, however they are trapped between the cost of maintaining ageing legacy systems - which cannot be switched off and they don't have the budget to substantially replace them - and keeping up with new technological developments, the increasing thirst for IT-enabled services and gadgets.

They're doing this in an environment where IT spending in government is flat or declining and agencies are attempting to save money around the edges, without being granted the capital amounts they need to invest in 'root and branch' efficiencies by rebuilding systems from the ground up.

So what needs to be done to rethink government IT to support the changing needs of government?

It needs to start with the recognition at political levels that without IT we would not have a functioning government. That IT is fundamental to enabling government to manage a nation as large and complex as Australia - our tax system, health system, social security and defence would all cease to function without the sophisticated IT systems we have in place.

Australia's Prime Minister is also Australia's Chief Technology Officer - almost every decision he makes has an impact on how the government designs, operates or modifies the IT systems that allow Australia to function as a nation.

While IT considerations shouldn't drive national decisions, they need to be considered and adequately resourced in order for the Australia government to achieve its potential, realise efficiencies and deliver the services it provides to citizens.

Beyond this realisation, the importance of IT needs to be top-of-mind for Secretaries, or their equivalents, and their 'C' level team. They need to be sufficiently IT-savvy to understand the consequences of decisions that affect IT systems and appreciate the cost and complexity of meeting the priorities of government.

Once IT's importance is clearly recognised at a political and public sector leadership level, government needs to be clear on what it requires from IT and CIOs need to be clear on the consequences and trade-offs in those decisions.

Government systems could be redesigned from the ground-up to make it easy to reorganise, merge and demerge departments - either using common IT platforms and services for staff (such as an APS-wide email system, standard web content management platform, single HR of financial systems), or by only selecting vendors whose systems allow easy and standard ways to export and import data - so that a person's email system can be rapidly and easily moved from one agency to another, or the HR information of two departments can be consolidated in a merger at low cost. User Interfaces should be largely standardised - so that email works the same way from any computer in any agency in government - and as much code as possible should be reused between agencies to minimise the customisation that results in even similar systems drifting apart over time.

The use of these approaches would significantly cut the cost of MOGs, as well as free up departmental IT to focus on improvements, rather than meeting the minimum requirements, a major efficiency saving over time.

Unfortunately I don't think we're, as yet, in a position for this type of significant rethink of whole of government IT to take place.

For the most part government still functions, is reasonably efficient and is managing to keep all the lights on (even if juggling the balls is getting progressively harder).

It took the complete collapse of the Queensland Health payroll project to get the government there to act to rethink their systems, and it is likely to take a similar collapse - of our Medicare, Centrelink or tax system - for similar rethinking to occur federally.

However I would not like to be a member of the government in power when (not if) this occurs.

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Has government found its feet in social media?

Earlier today I gave a presentation to the IABC's Canberra chapter on the use of social media within the Australian Government.

The slide deck I used is below, and fairly well carries my point - that government has indeed found its feet in social media, however there's still uneven ground waiting to trip it up if it missteps.

I'm interested as well in whether others agree with my assessment of the 18 Australian Government departments into social media leaders and followers (slide 17).

Has government found its feet in social media? from Craig Thomler

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Is it possible to deliver a government agency's standard IT systems on a single USB?

CSIR Mk 1 with Hollerith
equipment, Sydney 1952
Source: Museum Victoria

The Australian government was one of the earliest adopters of computers and computerisation.

CSIRAC (or CSIR Mk1), the first computer in Australia (and now the oldest surviving first-generation electronic computer), was used by scientists within CSIRO, by the Snowy Mountains Hydro Electric Authority and various university and government departments and agencies between 1949 and 1964 to make sense of 'big data' (for the time) which would have taken years to analyse by hand.

As the fifth stored program computer in the world, CSIRAC programmers could write their programs on punch tapes, check them one step at a time, and store them in the computer to be run again and again.

While computers have gotten a lot smaller, faster and efficient, they still use a similar programming approach to CSIRAC. Programs (software) are loaded into their memory and may then be accessed and run many times.

Of course modern computers use different storage mediums and can store and execute many programs at the same time.

Every government agency has an IT architecture made up of hundreds, if not thousands, of different programs - some run on a mainframe computer, others on desktop computers and still more on servers which allow staff to access the programs remotely from their desktop, laptop or even mobile platforms.

It is a very complex process to manage an agency's IT architecture - some programs may not 'play nice' with others, some may be twenty or more years old and require special hardware and maintenance to keep them operating.

Setting up a new agency can be an even more complex process. Often agencies are 'spawned' from existing departments and 'borrow' much of their IT infrastructure - the software required to run everything from payroll and HR to manage contracts, projects, compliance, Ministerial correspondence and provide the desktop applications required by staff to do their jobs.

Even more complex is the process of combining disparate agencies into a new department. This can require blending two or more sets of software programs into a single solution, with all the data migration and management issues this entails - not to mention addressing security considerations, staff training and avoiding long outages or data loss.

This is where my concept of 'government on USB' comes in.

Why not develop all the core software that a government agency needs to operate as open source shareable software and release it for other government agencies to reuse?

Using this approach it is possible that when a government dictates that a new agency must be formed that the CIO simply pulls out his 'Government Agency USB' and uploads all the required operational software as a complete agency package.

Potentially, via this method, a new agency could have all its core ICT systems in place and operating in days, if not hours.

This approach might seem farfetched, however we're already heading in that direction due to a couple of trends.

Today much of the software an agency needs to run its operations is available through SAAS (Software as a Service) or as cloud-based services - which both basically means that software is stored offsite, maintained by a specialist company and simply accessed and used as needed by an agency - provided they are confident of the security levels.

We're also seeing more and more of the software 'building blocks' of organisations becoming available in open source forms which can be downloaded, adjusted as required by an agency and used, either hosted internally or via a SAAS or cloud provided.

The US has actively been developing and releasing software in open source formats for other governments to use, as has the UK and a few other governments around the world. This offers massive national and international efficiencies for governments who can reuse rather than build or buy software.

The next step is for a government to audit the core systems required to establish a new agency and develop a standard IT Architecture that can be applied for any new agency (with room for specialised modules for unique functions). Then, by selecting from existing open source programs and potentially writing additional services, a government could put together a 'flatpack' IT architecture that any new agency could adopt quickly and easily.

If all the software in this 'flatpack' were open source, it could be easily improved and adjusted over time to meet changing legislative and operational requirements and to integrate ongoing improvements and enhancements.

Then once agencies have adopted this common 'flatpack' of software, it would be significantly easier and cheaper to merge agencies, as they would already be operating in a similar and interchangeable way.

Moving all of government across to this approach would take quite a few years - it's not achievable in a single term - however it would provide ultimately for a 'government on USB'.

This also has implications across the developing world and for newly formed countries, where their government agencies and institutions can suffer from a lack of experience, expertise and money to build the robust IT architecture needed for modern nations.

In the scenario I've described, a new or developing government could simply plug in the 'government on USB' into an agency's systems and establish a sophisticated IT environment to underpin governance in a very short period of time.

Is this simply an unattainable pipedream?

Some may scoff at the notion, however there are many people around the world working on parts of the 'government on USB' model today - albeit many may not be thinking about the bigger picture.

Much of the software required for a government agency is already available in open source form, from HR and financial management systems to desktop applications. It simply hasn't been linked together with a single set-up process.

To explore the concept it would take a government willing to innovate, investing resources and money.

This would be used to model the software requirements of an agency, identify where open source solutions exist (or existing solutions can be modified) and write new open source software where necessary.

Next there would be the need to ensure the solution is secure and to write a single set-up approach that makes it easy for a CIO to roll out the solution quickly.

This may not ultimately be possible or cost-effective, but given the cost of IT architecture changes today when creating, merging or updating agencies, surely it is worth considering.

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AGIMO restructure offers promise of improved whole-of-government IT efficiency

Yesterday AGIMO announced that the Australian Government Information Management Office was adopting a number of the recommendations of the Williams review.

In particular the Williams review identified that AGIMO had moved away from the IT policy and analysis role recommended by the 2008 Gershon review to take on a range of whole-of-government IT implementation functions.

These didn't necessarily always fit together well, with cultural differences (which Williams termed a 'schism') between policy and implementation Divisions and a split focus for AGIMO which diluted its effectiveness in driving government IT reforms.

In the new reform, taken following the departure of Ann Steward, AGIMO will be splitting into the AGCIO (Australian Government Chief Information Office), providing ICT Governance and policy investment advice around information and ICT for whole of government; and the AGCTO (Australian Government Chief Technology Office), providing whole of government service delivery and support including networks, online services and ICT procurement.

The current AGIMO First Assistant Secretaries will be taking on the leadership of these new offices. Glenn Archer as CIO and John Sheridan at CTO - though it is unclear if either or both of them are being promoted in level.

Both have sound track records in AGIMO and, while government employs merit-based promotion, it is no surprise that they've both been awarded these new roles ahead of any external candidates.

So what does this practically mean for AGIMO, the government and Australia?

Firstly, it is unclear whether AGIMO itself will continue to exist as a single entity, or as two separate offices who must work in close collaboration. This will require some short-term adaptation for AGIMO staff as they come to terms with the changes and how these offices work individually and together in practice.

Given than Glenn and John have a history of working together this, at least, bodes well for continued cooperation - though it is unlikely that the separation of the offices is likely to resolve the cultural 'schism' that Williams identified.

I expect the change process will see the AGCIO and AGCTO engage in navel-gazing for a few months as they develop their internal plans and come to grips with the new arrangements.

Both offices will then need to make it clear to the government and external stakeholders which is responsible for what areas. While one Office will be policy-focused and one implementation, in practice there are likely to be gray areas for which responsibility may not be clear to external observers.

This could create confusion as to which Office an agency, media representative, external stakeholder or supplier should speak to on given topics, which in turn could lead to misunderstandings and mistakes.

More critically is how the government will view and use the office to pursue whole-of-government IT reform and policy outcomes.

This reform is administrative - designed to make the machinery run better. There's been no public leadership from our elected government on what the new AGCIO and AGCTO are there to achieve.

This means that even if the AGCIO and AGCTO are doing their jobs - developing IT policies and implementing whole-of-government solutions around web hosting, IT procurement and governance - it remains unclear how this tactical work is being used strategically to bring the government's infrastructure and engagement into the 21st Century.

This is a major concern for me, per my last blog post on this subject. IT needs to be employed within a strategic framework, rather than treated as just one of the cogs in an agency's gears.

When agencies are unable to carry out policy goals for the government of the day due to their IT configuration, or when agencies are unable to effectively engage the community because their IT is substandard, there is a major issue that affects how Australia's elected representatives meet the needs of the community.

The new AGIMO structure doesn't appear to come with any additional mandate or resources (though more might be revealed next year) and this, in my opinion, will limit the ability of both AGCIO and AGCTO to be successful.

The new structure may even be counterproductive. If the AGCIO and AGCTO need to compete against each other for sufficient people and funds to achieve their goals, or a change in leadership sees the two offices less cooperative this will only weaken their effectiveness.

It is early days yet, and it takes time for this type of change to be fully communicated, considered, implemented and embedded.

I do believe that the restructure will provide a solid administrative base to continue to improve centralised strategic IT thinking, leadership and delivery.

I hope that, over the next few months, it will also become clear that there is the right political support and resourcing to use this base effectively - that it won't be starved to the point of irrelevance.

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GovCamp Queensland 2012 liveblog

I am in Brisbane all day today at GovCamp Queensland with roughly 200 Queensland public servants and will be liveblogging the event as far as possible, plus capturing the twitter feed for the day (which uses #GovCampQld).

Follow all the excitement below.

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Join the global Service Delivery JAM in Canberra (hosted by the Department of Innovation)

The Department of Industry, Innovation, Science, Research and Tertiary Education is holding the Canberra component of the Global Service Jam from 24-26 February 2012 as part of their efforts to support and foster innovative thinking across the Australian Public Service.

This is part of a 90 plus city global event where people who are interested in service and using a design-based approach to problem solving and creativity will meet all over the globe. In a spirit of experimentation, co-operation and friendly competition, teams will have 48 hours to develop brand new services inspired by a shared theme. On Sunday at 3pm, they publish them to the world.

Due to a change in venue to the newest purpose-built design thinking centre in Canberra (INSPIRE), the Department of Innovation has more space for jammers and has put out an invitation to public servants (and their friends) to join the jam.

Throughout the weekend jammers will work in teams, supported by innovation and design experts and mentors, to develop services that address key challenges and issues facing the public service and Australian community.

If you wish to help solve real issues, meet interesting and engaged peers from across Government and learn new techniques for problem solving that you can apply back in your own agency, please consider going along.

Even better, attendence is free!

For more information contact Mikaela or Wayne on psi@innovation.gov.au or by phone on (02) 6213 6613 or (02) 6213 6232.

And if you can't attend, you can follow the event on Twitter using the hashtags #GSJ12 and #servicedesign or via APS Innovation's @psinnovate account (note that you don't need a Twitter account to follow) 

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One week left to comment on the Information Commissioner's issue paper on public sector information

The Office of the Australian Information Commissioner has extended the deadline for commenting on their Information Policy Issue Paper 2: Understanding the value of public sector information in Australia until 8 February 2012.

If you wish to comment on the paper, visit the Consultations page of the OAIC website.

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Pfft - who needs to understand social media to be a social media advisor

Over the last year I've observed a couple of good and bad trends in governments around Australia.

The first - the good trend - is towards the recognition that social media is a valid and significant channel for government communication and engagement. This has led to the creation of a new type of role, the 'social media advisor', separate to online communications functions (which primarily concern themselves with traditional website production and content management).

The creation of these social media roles recognises there is a difference in the skillsets needed to manage one or more static and internally owned websites, compared with curating and co-ordinating a range of fast-changing external and internal engagement channels.

However alongside this needed job specialisation is another disturbing trend which causes me significant concern.

A number of those being employed in these new social media advisor roles don't have the mix of skills required to hit the ground running. I've heard of people with little or no experience with professional use of social media being employed as social media advisors simply on the basis of their personal use of these channel and therefore presumed competence.

I don't blame the people who take on these jobs and then work hard to learn the skills they need, it is a great opportunity working in a leading edge field. However the approach raises issues for me as to whether those hiring social media advisors are as yet clear on the skills needed to perform the role - or are clear on what their organisations need to fulfil these roles most effectively.

While agencies are generally sincerely committed to the integration of social media into their engagement mix, there are few employment consultants who can help them quantify their needs, identify suitable candidates and assist them in hiring the most effective people for these jobs.

My concern is that agencies, despite the best of intentions, may end up taking more significant risks, may lose internal momentum or even face social media stumbles - as has been the case in the private sector when social media roles first began to appear.

So how do we as public servants help address potential skills gaps and the resulting risks?

I would recommend that agencies talk to each other, share their goals and discuss the skillsets they need for these roles, they should bring in appropriate interviewers to help screen applicants and begin developing a career path for social media practitioners - with roles for rookies and experienced people.

They should also directly and indirectly lobby employment agencies to upskill to understand their social media needs and build their ability to identify appropriately skilled people for social media roles.

Most of all, they should get their new social media staff across all the great work done in other agencies and in the private sector, across all the governance and advice now available and encourage them to network with their peers across government (including attending the various community events such as Gov 2.0 lunches and BarCamps).

Hopefully what I am seeing is simply part of the growth pains for social media as agencies integrate it into their DNA.

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Should Australia's political parties have open government and Gov 2.0 policies? (NZ Labour does)

The New Zealand Labour Party have released an Open Government policy, proudly claiming it as first in New Zealand.

The policy focuses on transparency of political offices as the core principle, but also commits the party to producing a comprehensive "Open Government Charter‟, based on a set of principles developed by NZ Labour MPs in consultation with members of the public.

NZ Labour's policy includes provisions for Cabinet papers and other documents to be publicly available once decisions are made without people having to request them through the Official Information Act. Their policy also states that a Labour government would initiate a review of the Standing Orders and look at how to ensure better public input into the legislative process, including through the use of new technologies.

In particular NZ Labour's policy states that,

• Online engagement by public servants should be enabled and encouraged. Robust professional engagement with the public benefits government agencies, public servants’ own professional development, and the New Zealand public. 
• Public servants should be able to use social media in their professional role, and the government should provide protection and guidance/advice around how to do so effectively.

And that a Labour government would,

• Explore ways to expand the use that government makes of the Internet in engaging the public to feed into policy discussion and government direction.
• Develop a trial of online voting in local government and general elections.
• Publish the Hansard in a standard, open, parsable, format, so that it can easily be re-used and republished by anybody for any purpose

The full text of the NZ Labour Open Government policy is here.

Interestingly, while there's been Government commitments to open government and Gov 2.0 across Australia, I was unable to locate an explicit Open Government/Gov 2.0 policy on Australian Labor, Liberal, Greens or Nationals websites, although to be fair there are scattered mentions of supporting public engagement in governance and of strengthening FOI laws.

I wonder, should Australian political parties have explicit policies for Open Government and Government 2.0 with commitments to the use of online media and support for online engagement by public servants?

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Social media is now normal - so why do government agencies persist in treating it as an edge case?

As this article in Fast Company illustrates, social media is now normal, an integrated set of tools for ongoing human interaction.

We've known for several years that Australians are enormous users of social media, with Nielsen research indicating that the average Australian Internet user (and 95% of us are users based on Sensis figures) spends upwards of 7 hours per month actively using one of a range of online social networks - and this doesn't include the full range of online participation possible via forums, blogs and comments.

We've also known for several years that the community's number one preferred channel for engaging with government is via the Internet. AGIMO's research in this area has seen a steady (and predictable) upwards trend in the desire for greater online contact over the last 4-5 years.

So why do government agencies, by and large, still treat social media engagement as a fringe case, with access to these channels often restricted to a few people in the communications area and senior executives often still wary or debating how to monitor or support online contact (while enthusiastically supporting their phone-based contact centres)?

It has been interesting to watch agencies attempt to shoehorn social media and online engagement into the traditional models they are used to - one-to-one communication, with the timing and extent carefully controlled by the agency itself (and look how positively the community has regarded this form of engagement with government over the last ten years). Clearly control is an issue, as is budget and the exact context and content of messages.

However the world has moved on and agencies have to recognize and adapt, not merely tweak the corners or treat social media engagement as an edge case, for use by small groups under tightly controlled 'laboratory' conditions.

It is evident overseas how other western governments are beginning to accept these channels as core - with, perhaps surprisingly, the US armed forces serving as a good object example of how every soldier, sailor, pilot and support crew member is now regarded as a public engagement officer.

By taking the step to recognize this, then putting appropriate policies in place, the US armed forces have done an excellent job of managing the landscape changes, steps that Australian governments have, for the most part, been very slow to accept.

Today every government agency, at every level of government, needs to start by accepting that their staff, for the most part, are active online participants in their personal lives. They need to acknowledge that online channels are increasingly the source of public views and policy ideas from the community and must be accessible for staff to mine for intelligence, use to identify interesting and influential people and viewpoints and to engage actively in "robust policy conversations" (to quote APSC guidance on the topic).

Agencies need to recognize that social media and online channels are integral to their public reputation and the reputation of the Ministers and governments they serve. A view, complaint or compliment placed in a social network is equally valid to one made directly to an agency via their 'controlled' communications channels - and may be significantly more influential (or damaging) due to its public reach.

Certainly there are risks in online engagement - as there are in all communications to and with the outside world. However failure to engage online also bears risks, often much greater, of being seen to be irrelevant and ineffective, reducing the credibility of agencies and the Ministers they are required to serve. Failure to engage actively online can damage recruitment, procurement, policy development and program or service delivery outcomes in measurable and unmeasurable ways.

So agencies are really reaching a crunch point for their reputation and relevancy. Do they choose to continue to treat social media as an 'edge' activity, carefully quarantined from their everyday business, and risk becoming edge organisations?

Or do they choose to state a commitment to the use of social media and other online channels as a core aspect of their interactions with the outside world, and with their staff, then move to implement these commitments (taking the precautions necessary to make the change a pragmatic and well managed process rather than a headlong rush to catchup and survive).

This decision (integrate or quarantine) should be on the agenda at the highest levels of all government agencies in Australia today as it will soon begin to shape career prospects and even the long-term effectiveness of public organisations.

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RightClick presentation

I've been a little busy this week, what with my wedding on Saturday, however here, belatedly, is my presentation from last Friday at RightClick.

Gov 2.0 in a gov 1.0 world

View more presentations from Craig Thomler.

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Identifying the existence and impact of transformational leadership in the Australian public sector

Steve Davies over at OzLoop has just published a thesis by Dr Derek Ambrose that looks at the topic of leadership in the Australian public sector.

It is a fascinating read (particularly from pages 68-80 and 113-185 including the conclusion from pp160), and provides insights into challenges the public sector has experienced in encouraging new approaches to public sector management, innovation, appropriate risk-taking, in modernising systems and processes and in embedding Government 2.0 as business-as-usual.

I commend Derek's paper, Identifying the existence and impact of transformational leadership in the Australian public sector as an excellent and thought-provoking read.

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46 countries commit to the international Open Government Partnership

The Open Government Partnership is "a global effort to make governments better", led by Brazil and the USA.

The concept was announced a few months ago and countries have been rapidly signing up to the commitments required to demonstrate their willingness to take action to improve transparency and accountability in government.

As their website states,

Participating countries in the Open Government Partnership pledge to deliver country action plans that elaborate concrete commitments on open government. In each country, these commitments are developed through a multi-stakeholder process, with the active engagement of citizens and civil society.

The launch of the Partnership occurred a few days ago, on 20 September in New York. 46 countries signed up (about 24 percent of all countries), including about half of the G20, a number of Asia-Pacific nations and a number of European states.

Here's a list of the launch members:

Steering committee

• Brazil (G20)
• Indonesia (G20)
• Mexico (G20)
• Norway
• Philippines
• South Africa (G20)
• United Kingdom (G20)
• United States (G20)

Participants

• Albania
• Azerbaijan
• Bulgaria
• Canada (G20)
• Chile
• Colombia
• Croatia
• Czech Republic
• Dominican Republic
• El Salvador
• Estonia
• Georgia
• Ghana
• Guatemala
• Honduras
• Israel
• Italy (G20)
• Jordan
• Kenya
• Korea (G20)
• Latvia
• Liberia
• Lithuania
• Macedonia
• Malta
• Moldova
• Mongolia
• Montenegro
• Netherlands
• Peru
• Romania
• Slovak Republic
• Spain
• Sweden
• Tanzania
• Ukraine
• Uruguay

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What are the top things we can do to improve government websites?

The US has launched an interesting discussion asking citizens how they think the Federal government can improve government websites.

Run using Ideascale, an online idea management system, the National Dialogue on improving Federal websites is running for two weeks and involves both ideas submission and voting as well as live online discussions(or dialogue-a-thons) on specific website related topics.

I'd love to see this type of initiative organised in Australia, however in the interim it is worth looking at the ideas raised in the US, beginning with the use of Plain language on government websites, Creating content around topics/customers - not agencies, make usability testing and 508 testing (accessibility) required PRIOR to launch, Make Government Website Mobile Accessible and Commit to best practices (using modern web techniques).

If Australian government agencies applied these five top ideas to their own web development (or even applied standards from some of the excellent web links and comments for several of the ideas) we could see a very different level of engagement, potential cut the number of phone calls and ministerials, address hidden issues with incomplete forms and avoid agency embarrassment (when organisations publicly identify government websites that fail basic accessibility or mobile access requirements).

Of course this requires adequately funding and resourcing web teams to carry out these tasks - however this can be offset through mandating external developers to meet government's basic accessibility and content requirements and through using low-cost modern content management frameworks which support significantly greater functionality and require less customisation than the old backroom systems still in place at many agencies.

Even more valuable would be for the Australian government to similarly ask citizens what they thought should be improved about government sites.

I do wonder why Australia appears more fearful or risk-averse to asking citizens these types of questions and building an evidence base on which it can then assess actions. Or maybe it isn't risk-aversion and is simply due to cost (though the service the US uses costs only US$999 per year - and there's even a free version) or due to lack of resources or even interest.

However if the US government, where the political process is on the nose, unemployment is high, the economy is distressed and web budgets are in decline, can ask this question, surely Australia is in a much better position to do so.

To go a little further, to offset the perceptual risk that citizens may expect government agencies to act on specific improvement requests, the consultation could be shaped as an information gathering exercise, where the outcomes will be made available to various agencies to act or not act as they can within their budgets and resourcing.

Or maybe individual agencies can ask the question as part of their website surveys (if they hold them - as I've done regularly in past positions) and share this information across the APS.

What do you think?

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Do we really need a common look and feel for government websites?

Recently Luke Fretwell over at Govfresh asked the question Time for government to plug into one platform?

While I am a big fan of Luke's and agree with his view that transferring government websites to Facebook, granting partial control over them to a foreign-jurisdiction company, is not a good idea, I find it harder to agree with Luke's point on centralising government websites and employing a common look and feel.

I've never been a fan of the 'one site fits all' approach of the UK Government's attempted Directgov website - or a supporter of the view that all government sites should have a common look and feel.

Why?

Because websites need to be designed to meet their specific set of goals within the constraints of the needs and preferences of their key audiences.

Where the goals and audiences are different, the websites need to be designed and operate differently.

Even when the goals and audience of two separate websites are similar, there can be good reasons to solve the 'problem' of usability and quick access to key information in different ways.

Web design is an art as well as a science. There's often multiple ways to achieve a good outcome, not one single approach that is best. This means that a government that did lock itself into a single 'right' website look and feel may find itself in a blind alley over time, requiring a huge shift in design to jump onto a more future-proof track.

When I commented on Twitter about my views I was told that a common look and feel made citizens more comfortable that a website was 'official'. This is quite a useful technique in the real world, where standard uniforms are used in a number of government professions to convey officialness and trust (such as police forces).

However online governments cannot trademark a given 'uniform' design for their websites, leaving it open for others to employ a similar or identical layout in order to mislead people into believing they are official websites.

The best safeguards of 'officialness' are those we already use - a common crest (where legal action can be taken to protect it from fraudulent duplication) and the use of a common domain '.gov' which is unavailable to anyone other than government agencies.

These two safeguards ensure that anyone visiting a government website can be assured that it is owned and maintained by the government in a way that a common look and feel cannot.

I always try to keep in mind that government websites are not common places for citizens to visit. Citizens only go to government sites for specific purposes - to find information on a given topic, to access a service or to report an occurrence.

Meanwhile government web staff visit government websites all the time, particularly their own.

I've generally found that while government web teams can point out all the flaws in their sites, visitors (who may go to the site once a year) don't notice them and often have a much more positive view towards government sites than do the internal experts.

I've yet to see evidence that citizens want a single website for government, at any level. What they do want is to find the information or service they are seeking quickly and easily. Google has become the front door into many websites - including government sites - because it meets this need.

Why should government invest a cent into replicating what search engines already do well? We could better invest our money into ensuring that when people get to our sites that the content is current, relevant, written in plain English and fully accessible.

Touching a little further on the concept of a single central government site, often the structure of government works against this approach anyway.

Agencies are funded separately, managed under different laws and often have restrictions on how and when they can share information.

They have widely different needs to engage the public and generally need to control their own web presences in order to maximise their flexibility when the environment changes.

Moving to a single content management system and single website poses a number of challenges for operational management structures, flexibility and funding.

Do all agencies forgo some funding for websites to fund a central agency web unit?

How does an urgent ministerial need (which requires the equivalent of a website today) get fulfilled in a timely manner? How does the central team prioritise development work, and who has access to content - and at what level.

There's just so many questions as yet unconsidered - even in the UK's Directgov model.

While I hate the proliferation of web sites across government, where every policy or program area, government directive and new initiative often 'requires' a new and discreet website, I think we'd be better placed putting a common framework around when and how government websites are built, and developing a central public list of these sites, than attempting to fit all these diverse properties into a single content management solution, central site and common look and feel.

By all means recommend a standard approach (always put the About link at far right, include a Contact, Privacy, Terms and Copyright page, organise content in relation to the audience, not the Department's structure), but don't compel a standard look and feel or central site.

I predict that many agencies would work around a centralised model, simply to meet the government's explicit policy requirements.

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UK central government spending data released on data.gov.uk

data.gov.uk has dramatically revised its layout (for the better!) and recently released 557 datasets (1.8 million entries) representing all UK government spending over 25,000 pounds under the section Open Spending.

This represents a new milestone in open data releases around the world and provide a new range of insights into the financial decisions of the UK government.

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European Union requires websites to make users 'opt-in' to website cookies

The EU Government's 2009 Directive banning "unnecessary" cookies in websites (if the site doesn't ask users to accept the cookie first) has just begun coming into effect - causing havoc and distress amongst European webmasters.

Cookies are small text files that websites store on a user's computer in order to reduce the need for users to enter information again and again. They are used in ecommerce sites to 'remember' what is in your shopping trolley, in social media sites to remember that you're logged in, to personalise content or advertisements based on your preferences and by many sites to provide anonymous website reports.

It is estimated that around 92% of websites use cookies. In fact it is hard to imagine the modern web without them.

However in 2009 the European Union decided as part of a 2009 amendment to their Privacy and Electronic Communications Directive that even though all modern web browsers allow users to choose to accept or refuse cookies, cookies may pose a privacy threat to individuals.

While the Directive doesn't explain why they may pose a threat, it states that cookies can be a useful tool and,

their use should be allowed on condition that users are provided with clear and precise information in accordance with Directive 95/46/EC about the purposes of cookies or similar devices so as to ensure that users are made aware of information being placed on the terminal equipment they are using. Users should have the opportunity to refuse to have a cookie or similar device stored on their terminal equipment.

In other words, when cookies are used for a legitimate purpose (though 'legitimate' is not clearly defined in the Directive), they can be used by websites provided that users are provided with an up-front method to view what each cookie is for and 'opt-out' of each cookie.

This directive was to be interpreted into law by European states by May 2011. So far only three countries have complied, Denmark, Estonia and the United Kingdom. The UK has also given webmasters twelve months to introduce appropriate opt-out controls on their websites, recognising the impact of their law. Other countries in the EU will introduce their cookie laws soon.

So OK, European websites using cookies now must have an opt-out provision for UK, Denmark and Estonian users and soon for all Europeans in the EU.

So where is the sting in the tail?

Firstly, these laws may apply to all websites that are viewable in European countries, as existing European privacy laws already require. This would mean that Google, Facebook, Twitter and other social media sites hosted in the UK, Asia or anywhere else in the world would need to change how they functioned due to European-only laws.

Under this interpretation (yet to be tested in court), all (hundred million plus) websites, whether ecommerce, news, information or government would have to comply.

That includes Australian government websites using cookies, including any using Google Analytics, 'share' tools, shopping carts or otherwise using cookies to store (even non-identifiable) information on users - even for a single session.

There is an alternative. Non-European websites could simply block Europeans from viewing their sites and therefore would not need to comply with the European law. That would present a very interesting geographic freedom-of-information ban, as well as damaging the businesses of many organisations and governments who want Europeans to access their websites.

The second concern is around how the opt-in approach to cookies must work.

There's no clear approach in the Directive and plenty of confusion on how the opt-in control should work. The suggested approaches in the UK are to use pop-ups (which most modern browsers automatically block) or to use an 'accordion' that appears at the top of all webpages, as is used by the UK's Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) - the ugly block of text at the top of the website.

A more humorous implementation of a pop-up opt-in control is used on David Naylor's website - read the text.

The BBC has introduced an opt-in approach that accidentally managed to break the law while implementing it - by using a cookie to hide the message asking you to opt-in for cookies. Oops - they needed to have an opt-in for that too.

The third issue with this European directive is the impact on useful things websites do. It will become much harder to personalise content for users or report on websites. Indeed the impact of people opting out of cookies, therefore rendering all cookie-based reporting significantly more inaccurate, is already being tracked. The ICO's website has itself seen a 90% fall in recorded (tracked) traffic. This indicates that the ICO will no longer know what site users are doing and cannot as effectively optimise and improve their website. Magnify this across millions of websites.

For those who wish to learn more about European Cookie Laws, check out the short video below or read the The definitive guide to the Cookie law.

And, as always, I'd appreciate your thoughts - particularly on the questions below.

Has Europe become the Cookie Monster? Or is this a reasonable and appropriate step to improve user privacy?

Should Europe have the right to impose laws in their jurisdiction on the rest of the world? If not, should the rest of the world stop Europeans visiting our sites?

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Empowering citizens to lead public governance reforms in developing and developed nations

One of the assumptions often applied to government funding for aid and governance reform programs is that the funding must be granted to established corporations, NGOs or not-for-profits that have hierarchies, governance structures, offices and methodologies for achieving outcomes.

It only makes sense - when investing government money into development activities there needs to be ways to mitigate risks and ensure accountability.

Surely a well-established organisation, with structural integrity and processes, must be well-equipped to manage and deliver change outcomes.

A ten-year research study from the Development Research Centre on Citizenship, Participation and Accountability (Citizenship DRC), has found that the assumption that an established organisation is better equipped to deliver governance reform is just that - an assumption.

As reported by Nick Benequista in the website of the Institute of Development Studies, the Citizenship DRC's report, Blurring the Boundaries: Citizenship Action Across States and Societies (PDF):

"argues that "the 'good governance' agenda that has persisted in international development since the early 1990s is itself due for a citizen-led upheaval."

Benequista's article, How a citizen-led approach can transform aid to governance, points to over 150 cases highlighted on the Citizenship DRC website where bottom-up citizen-led initiatives have been effective in achieving governance change in different countries, circumstances and on different issues.

Perhaps this is an area we need to explore more of in Government 2.0.

How can we rebalance the relationship between governments and citizens through development funding to achieve better outcomes.

Is giving money to established organisations the best approach, or do governments need to listen more directly to citizens and listen less to intermediaries.

With the emerging knowledge and experience in this area around the world it will be interesting to see whether Australian governments are willing - or able - to reframe their approach to development.

To finish with Benequista's words,

The good governance agenda of the 1990s has already overstayed its usefulness. The question now is whether what comes next will finally give citizens the role they have been demanding.

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