Will the Australian Government take an open government approach to developing its Open Government National Action Plan?

Now that Australia has finally sent a letter of intent to join the Open Government Partnership, I've been reading examples of how other jurisdictions went about developing their National Action Plans (a requirement of OGP membership) to foster and support government openness.

It is clear that one of the key attributes of the most meaningful Plans is broad engagement with external and internal stakeholders and with the public on what should be included and emphasised within the National Action Plan itself.

For example, the US's second National Action Plan states:

As it developed a U.S. National Action Plan (“National Plan”), the Federal Government engaged in extensive consultations with external stakeholders, including a broad range of civil society groups and members of the private sector. It solicited inputfrom theAdministration’s own Open Government Working Group, comprised of senior-level representatives from executive branch departments and agencies. White House policymakers also engaged the public via a series of blog posts, requesting ideas about how to focus Open Government efforts on increasing public integrity, more effectively managing public resources, and improving public services. Responsive submissions were posted online.

And Canada's National Action Plan states:

Over the past two years, we have consulted Canadians on both the development of a Digital Economy Strategy and on Open Government. Our Digital Economy consultation sought feedback from all Canadians on how to improve innovation and creativity, and achieve the shared goal of making Canada a global leader in the digital economy. More recently, in the fall of 2011, we launched a consultation to explore Canadians’ perspectives on Open Government in order to inform the development of Canada’s Action Plan on Open Government. 

In fact, it is a requirement for joining the OGP that nations engage in public consultation around their National Action Plan - not simply trump out previous consultations on related topics.

For example, the UK's draft for their second National Action Plan is currently out for public consultation at https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/open-government-partnership-uk-draft-national-action-plan-2013

Something that will be keenly watched by the open government community in Australia is therefore not only whether the Australian Government releases a National Action Plan and completes its commitments to join the OGP, but how the Government goes about creating the plan.

This is a case of monkey see, monkey do - the tone of openness for future Australian governments could be set by how the Government consults and engages the public and external stakeholders in creating the plan.

If the Australian Government takes a 'lip service' approach, resting on past achievements and limited engagement, this will provide senior public servants with a lead that the Government wants to be seen to be open, but doesn't really wish to be open, leading to similar behaviour in future consultations and openness across the Australian Public Service (APS).

However if the Australian Government takes this opportunity to pursue a world-class approach to demonstrating it s commitment to being as open as a national government can realistically be, this sends a different signal, a signal of commitment to true transparency, which will provide a different lead to senior public servants, one which fosters ongoing commitment throughout the APS.

A lot rests on the approach the Australian Government takes to progresses its intent to join the OGP over the next few months - with a backdrop of a new Prime Minister, new Ministry and new agenda facing an upcoming federal election and an in-progress FOI review.

With the Attorney-General's Department in charge of the OGP process, rather than a government body more intimately connected with an openness agenda, we can only wait and see how the Australian Government will take this forward.

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Freedom of information advocacy: a global snapshot, from Open & Shut

I've had no time to blog this week due to family commitments, however thought it worth drawing attention to Peter Timmins' fascinating post on freedom of information, over at his Open & Shut blog.

Titled Freedom of information advocacy: a global snapshot, the post provides information on the recent report from the Freedom of Information Advocates Network about global Freedom of Information (FOI), also known as Right To Information (RTI), looking at the 95 jurisdictions (slightly under half of the world's countries) that currently have FOI or RTI laws.

Peter wrote the section for Australasia and Oceania and includes an extract in his post.

For the report itself, visit www.foiadvocates.net

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Delivering last decade's technology today - what has gone wrong with ATO eTAX?

Six months ago I blogged about the success of e-tax as an egovernment service.

Over the last 14 years the service had grown to an annual 2.5 million submissions, with growth of around 5% per year.

I called it an egovernment success story for Australia - and stand by that view. E-tax has done a great job of delivering a service most adult Australians needed, a way of completing our annual tax return in a much faster and simpler manner.

However the buzz around the Australian Tax Office's (ATO) launch of an Apple version of its e-tax software has been uniformly negative.

Error message in etax for Apple
Source: Sydney Morning Herald

Besides there being issues with the software not working under the default security settings for Apple's operating system (now fixed), the interface not complying with Apple's user interface standards (due to being a direct port from Windows), and the time it has taken for an Apple version (17 years), concerns have also been raised at the development cost (reportedly $5.2 million) and the entire approach - developing system-specific software rather than a web application.

When the ATO first launched e-tax (for Windows only) in 1997 on CD, it was considered a state-of-the-art egovernment service, showcasing the way ahead for government in moving from paper to a digital-first approach.

Over the years, as the service grew in popularity, so did the calls for the ATO to support other platforms - even create a web-based service.

The ATO continued developing e-tax, updating it every year with the latest tax law changes, refining the interface, improving the speed and logic and ensuring it worked with the latest versions of Windows - apparently spending over $39 million on the software to 2013, or an average of $2.8 million per year.

Of that, approximately $32 million went to the private company that developed the software, yes e-tax was outsourced from the start.

According to Crikey, in 2004 the Tax Commissioner indicated at Senate Estimates that the ATO hadn't seen substantial demand for versions of e-tax on other platforms, however by 2007 the ATO announced in a media release that they would test an Apple version in 2008.

These tests were subsequently abandoned and nothing further happened until 2011, when the ATO again said it had an Apple version almost ready - but again delayed it until 2013 due to issues.

The Apple version of e-tax released last Friday, reportedly cost $5.2 million to develop on top of the cost of the Windows product.

I can't verify how good this version is, as I've not yet succeeded in getting it to run on my Apple laptop.

However even if it runs perfectly, the ATO has reached a point where it needs to look beyond the current software-based approach to e-tax.

While understanding the ATO's commitment to security, in an age when the majority of Australians use the internet for their banking, companies use web-based financial, HR and CRM systems and the world's financial markets are managed through web-based trading systems, it doesn't make sense that the ATO is still developing and maintaining operating system specific software.

While I appreciate that not all Australians are online, that hasn't been a barrier to other commercial or government services offering online services, backed by face-to-face, phone or paper processes for people offline.

In fact the ATO's paper submission process works quite well - the design thinking employed by the ATO has borne a lot of fruit in this area.

From being a leader in the electronic tax return area, we've now dropped in the list significantly - with some other nations offering more sophisticated web-based solutions, or having opened the field to private companies who meet their tax office's requirements.

The ATO's centralised software-based approach is a good 20th Century solution, but an increasingly poor approach for the 21st Century as the range of devices people are using keeps increasing.

While the ATO might be able to justify cost-efficiencies in continuing to deliver e-tax as a software product, the writing is on the wall for operating system specific client software.

More and more software is moving online, with computers and other internet connection devices increasingly using web browsers essentially as their operating systems.

The risk the ATO faces is that the rising cost of maintaining and updating multiple copies of e-tax might leave the agency with less and less funds for product innovation.

In effect, if the ATO doesn't put a concerted effort into making the leap from software clients to software as a service it risks having e-tax become a white elephant, dragging down its future innovation capability.

Many organisations face this type of decision at some point. Deciding when to make a paradigm leap of  this type is hard, and quickly distinguishes good from bad management.

Microsoft is moving its products online as services, as is Adobe and companies such as Salesforce.com have led the way in replacing locally hosted CRM, HR, financial and other organisational systems with online equivalents.

Government agencies will need to make similar, if not identical, decisions. When to shift the services they provide, such as e-tax, from client to cloud, when to replace the services they use with cloud from client - and which they especially need to not replace.

Whatever impact the current media storm has on the ATO, I hope both political and public sector leadership is prepared to lead in this area. To change how they approach and deliver IT to deliver long-term efficiencies and improvements.

With the focus on the ATO, I hope they are able to step up. While their track record on egovernment is good, the environment has changed and they must change with it.

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My presentation to the UK Government Digital Service

I'm going to do a full post on my visit to the UK Government Digital Service (the GDS), but thought I'd lead with the presentation I gave to them regarding the state of Government 2.0 and open government in Australia, and how we've reached the point we're at.

Note this is purely my view of the situation - if I've gotten things wrong, please correct me so I keep it in mind when speaking to others.

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How to shut down or redirect an official Ministerial or agency social media account

With the change in Australia's Prime Minister last week, the resignation of a large handful of Ministers, and the announcement of new Ministers this week, we've seen some interesting approaches to shutting down Ministerial Twitter accounts.

Senator Jacinta Collins closed her Ministerial account with two very-matter-of-fact tweets, redirecting people to the new Ministers:

This account is now closed. For Education media, follow @MinShortenMedia and @ParlSecThomson.
— Sen Jacinta Collins (@SenCollinsMedia) July 2, 2013

This account is now closed. For Employment media, please follow @MinOConnorMedia and @KateEllisMP.
— Sen Jacinta Collins (@SenCollinsMedia) July 2, 2013

Senator Conroy, Wayne Swan MP and Peter Garrett MP ended on higher notes, before the new Ministry was announced (therefore not redirecting to new Ministers):

For everyone who's asked 'Why the Dalek?' - farewell from all of us in Team Conroy pic.twitter.com/v05YmLP1We
— Conroy MO (@ConroyMO) June 27, 2013

Thank you Australia for the absolute privilege of being your Treasurer for the past five and a half years
— Wayne Swan (@SwannyQLD) June 26, 2013

Thanks for all the support, no regrets here as I resign as Minister and rejoin my dear family with good things done for our nation. PG
— Peter Garrett AM MP (@PGarrettMP) June 26, 2013

My point in highlighting these tweets is to consider how Ministers and agencies should close down their Twitter or other social media accounts after losing a position (for a Minister) or are 'MOGed' (Machinery of Government) - merged into another agency or disbanded (for an agency or department).

Clearly there's a range of transition or shut down steps that need to be taken in any of these cases and social media can be at the bottom of the list of concerns. However as social channels are increasingly important methods for contacting a Minister or agency, there does need to be some care taken to continue monitoring live accounts and providing appropriate redirection instructions (as Senator Collins has done for her account).

So how should accounts be shutdown or redirected?

Here's some suggested steps:

1. Transfer the account and keep operating it if feasible. Sure a person may have left a position, or an agency's duties may be subsumed into another department, however in many cases the role or responsibility hasn't disappeared entirely.
   
   A social media audience is an asset - companies and agencies pay a great deal of money to access the audiences 'owned' by media outlets and it is not sensible to throw away a Minister or agency's audience just because of a change in personnel.
2. If a position is disappearing or an agency's role is ending, avoid an immediate shutdown or cessation of activity on an account. Yes Ministers can disappear overnight, and agencies can be swallowed up quite quickly, however it takes longer for all members of the community to get the message that a change has occurred.
   
   Abrupt disconnects can also be disrespectful if handled poorly, leaving a community upset and abandoned - just like walking away from a conversation with someone while you or they are in mid-sentence.
   
   Continue monitoring and communicating through the account for at least a few days, and preferably a few weeks to retain the connection with the community and allow a gradual withdrawal and redirection. This will help maintain the relationship during the transition and ensure that the new Minister or agency has a base to build on.
3. Communicate the change actively, not just through tweets and posts, but also in the profile and 'about' information for an account. Tweets and posts appear and disappear in peoples' streams whereas profile information is there continually, ensuring followers and visitors can see the message at anytime.
   
   If continuing to communicate through the account (such as during a handover or to prevent issues around an immediate shutdown), ensure that you periodically communicate the change via tweets and posts as well.
4. Give people somewhere to go. When shutting down an account, provide details of where people should go to continue to follow the topic. For an agency this means directing people to the new agency's social media accounts (if they have them), for a Minister it means (if the same party) directing them to the new Minister's social media accounts, as Senator Collins did in her accounts as illustrated above, or to the department or political party's accounts if the new Minister doesn't have a social presence.
   
   If there's a change in government occurring, it is unlikely that a Minister or their advisors would be very willing to provide the community with a link to their successor however, if the account is personally operated, redirecting to the ex-Minister's personal account or political party's account is an option instead.

In summary, if agencies and Ministers avoid abruptly ending the conversation (abandoning their audience), communicate the change clearly and provide a path for people who wish to continue to follow the topic and have a conversation, changes in social media accounts can be managed quite effectively without losing reputation or respect and avoiding negative consequences or attention.

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