As part of a wide-ranging public consultation process undertaken last year, the Secretary of the Department of Finance and Deregulation, David Tune, in his role as the chair of the Secretaries’ ICT Governance Board (SIGB), released the Draft ICT Strategic Vision.  This post is to update you on progress on the Vision and about changes at AGIMO.

Following the public consultation process, SIGB members held a very effective workshop with a range of senior industry (both ICT and other) executives and academics.  Attendees enthusiastically engaged in the debate, providing SIGB members with very valuable feedback.  So successful was the process that SIGB has agreed to adopt it as a model for the inclusion of independent, external advice in future significant policy development.

As a consequence of the workshop, the broader consultation process, and additional advice from Dr Ian Reinecke, SIGB updated and endorsed the Draft ICT Strategic Vision.  A key element of the Vision continues to be active engagement with the community. Consistent with that, I am sharing this updated version with you today.

Given that the impact of implementing this new Vision falls particularly to AGIMO, David and I felt it prudent to take the opportunity to look at AGIMO’s existing capacity to successfully implement it.  We reached this view in recognition that the major effort over the last three years for AGIMO has been the successful implementation of the ICT Reform Program established in response to the review undertaken by Sir Peter Gershon in 2008.

As the draft Vision represents a shift in emphasis at AGIMO, SIGB needs confidence that AGIMO has the right mix of skills and resources.  With this in mind, last year David asked Ms Helen Williams AO to undertake a review of AGIMO to determine what, if any, changes might be necessary.  Ms Williams provided her report (the report included a small number of sensitive matters, primarily of a commercial and security nature, that have been redacted) earlier this year.  It is a thorough analysis of how best to realign AGIMO’s existing resources to ensure that it is well positioned to address its new tasks.   Her findings demonstrated that, with some shift in focus, AGIMO is well set to lead the implementation of the Vision across the Australian Public Service. We are progressively implementing her recommendations.

At its recent meeting, SIGB discussed the outcomes of Ms Williams’ report and the progress we have already made. These changes will become more obvious over the next few months. I’ll keep you informed as they proceed.

Thank you to those of you who have contributed to our ongoing improvement.

• Draft Strategic Vision for the Australian Government’s use of ICT Version 2 PDF (1.4 MB)
• Draft Strategic Vision for the Australian Government’s use of ICT Version 2 DOC (470 KB)

•  Implementing the ICT Strategic Vision: A report for the Secretary of the Commonwealth Department of Finance and Deregulation on the draft ICT Strategic Vision PDF (540 KB)
• Implementing the ICT Strategic Vision: A report for the Secretary of the Commonwealth Department of Finance and Deregulation on the draft ICT Strategic Vision DOC (200 KB)

• Review of the Operational Activities and Structure of AGIMO PDF (960 KB)
• Review of the Operational Activities and Structure of AGIMO DOC (570 KB)