[LINK] An IT revolution for taxpayers

[David Boxall]

Accen-tuate the positive,
Elim-inate the negative.

-- 
David Boxall                    |  I have seen the past
david.boxall at hunterlink.net.au  |  And it worked.
                                |               --TJ Hooker

An IT revolution for taxpayers
Author: Julian Bajkowski
Publication: Australian Financial Review (29,Tue 17 Oct 2006)
The federal government plans to overhaul the way public service 
departments employ the internet to dramatically simplify the use of 
government services for business and taxpayers.

In the biggest upgrade to the public sector's use of information 
technology during the coalition's 10 years in power, the reforms will 
require government agencies to adopt new work practices that will 
streamline everyday access to simple services.

Hundreds of paper-based welfare benefit and community services forms 
will migrate to internet-based transactions, as the federal government 
changes its service delivery model. These include the much maligned 
30-page application forms for family tax benefit and the baby bonus.

People who register a change of address at one government agency will 
also be able to have their new details automatically carried though to 
all others - including state registries and local councils.

The reforms are intended to upgrade technology operations performed by 
several agencies including the Australian Taxation Office, Centrelink, 
Medicare and the Department of Family and Community Services and 
Indigenous Affairs.

Spearheaded by public service chief Peter Shergold, the reforms are 
designed to make more effective use of the federal government's 
expenditure on information and communications technology which consume 
between $5 billion and $7 billion a year.

Other moves include the widespread implementation of a controversial 
technology known as auto-population to allow computers at one government 
agency to retrieve the personal details and particulars of individuals 
from another. These include taxable income, welfare entitlements and 
concessional status.

The system is already used between the ATO and Centrelink, and the 
government plans to extend it to Medicare, the pharmaceutical benefits 
scheme and pensions.

Yesterday Dr Shergold, commonwealth auditor-general Ian McPhee and 
public service commissioner Lynelle Briggs launched new guidelines to 
govern how public sector programs and policies are implemented.

Directed squarely at chief executives and departmental secretaries, the 
new rules hold major implications not only for how agencies buy their 
technology, but also how they measure its success.

The government's attempts to put the internet to work for taxpayers has 
proved far from easy since Prime Minister John Howard promised in 1997 
to have all "appropriate" services online by 2001.

Although thousands of government websites have been created since, 
transaction technologies such as the 20-year-old Eftpos system are only 
now being adapted to provide consumer services such as electronic 
claiming of Medicare refunds.

In August Mr Howard announced plans to pay up to $10 billion worth of 
Medicare refunds directly into patients' bank accounts using the Eftpos 
system.

He said the new system would dramatically lower manual transaction costs 
of between $3.50 and $10, and remove the need to queue at Medicare 
offices to claim refunds that typically amounted to $35 per doctor's 
consultation.

Dr Shergold acknowledged that the 1990s experiment with 
whole-of-government IT outsourcing had led to a loss of strategic 
control over public sector technology.

"I think it is true to say we've been a little bit slow to grasp the 
full capacity of IT," Dr Shergold told The Australian Financial Review.

"People will only really engage with the government electronically when 
they are able to do transactions. Until people start to transact [over 
the internet] with government, then the technology will not be taken up 
to the degree that we need."

Several ministers, including Health Minister Tony Abbott and Human 
Services Minister Joe Hockey, are believed to regard Medicare as the 
prime example of how entrenched bureaucratic resistance has left 
government services technology decades behind the commercial sector.

To wrest back strategic control over the government's technology agenda, 
Dr Shergold has sheeted the responsibility for the success or failure of 
government technology projects directly back to individual departmental 
and agency heads. Specifically, department heads and chief executives 
are required to co-ordinate technology strategy through a formal 
committee to avoid the repetition of major IT breakdowns that plagued 
the Australian Customs Service and the Department of Immigration.

Both agencies have seen their chief executives replaced in the past 12 
months by senior public servants who are regarded as having successfully 
run large technology projects.

Auto-population pioneer and former Taxation Commissioner Michael Carmody 
now heads Customs after instigating a $450 million technology overhaul. 
DIMA secretary Andrew Metcalfe and deputy secretary Bob Correll both 
pushed through new IT systems at the Department of Employment Workplace 
Relations where Dr Shergold was once secretary.

The Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet has also established a 
powerful Cabinet Implementation Unit (CIU) to assess all new projects 
for their impact across the entire government. Some have likened it to a 
public sector project flying squad, largely because of its project veto 
powers.

Table :
ONLINE      
Federal government IT projects      
Department        Project                          Budget
Human Services    Access Card                      $1.1bn
Immigration       Systems for People               $495m
Taxation Office   Change Program                   $450m
Centrelink        IT Refresh                       $312m
Defence           Wide area network replacement    $250m
Customs           Cargo management re-engineering  $205m
Foreign Affairs   ePassport                        $165m