[LINK] web: Taxpayers, IT expert slam ATO's 'appalling' myGov integration

[David Lochrin]

I suppose this is the work of the "Digital Transformation Office" announced by Abbott & Malcolm Turnbull back in January - see for example http://www.computerworld.com.au/article/564624/government-gets-startup-fever-digital-transformation-office/ in Computerworld.

Computerworld: 'The DTO will be made up of a "small team of developers, designers, researchers and content specialists working across government to develop and coordinate the delivery of digital services". It will operate more like a startup than a traditional government agency, the government said.' and '"The DTO will also work closely with State and Territory Governments to identify opportunities for collaboration, including ways to make better use of myGov."'

Why am I reminded of the ABC's absolutely brilliant "Utopia" series?  Fortunately, a new series is underway...


On 2015-07-07 14:29 Frank O wrote:

> Then there is the fact that the ATO seems incapable of getting its front end systems to ‘talk to’ its back-end systems in real time. They seem incapable of Enterprise Application Integration, and doing business on the Web Basically all you get if you lodge a return online is the same time frame, delays and enterprise performance as you get if you lodge a paper form.
> 
> And I’m not even gonna talk about the problems with server clustering, load balancing and other demand handling problems their publicly connected servers have.

Do we know the basic architecture of this system?  I presume the myGov website is run by a separate silo, and the idea is to have each government organisation interface their own back-end systems.  But that might raise interesting problems of interface / protocol standardisation at both the user & application ends, rather large scalability issues, and major problems of system availability and data integrity.

Does anyone have any insights?

David L.