InnovationAus.com - DTA stripped of ‘life events’ services push

The Albanese government is under fire for a slow down on reforms for ‘life event’ services after revelations it had not funded a proposal to reinvigorate the mammoth project and is shifting its responsibility out of the Digital Transformation Agency (DTA).

Responsibility will be passed to Services Australia in July, which will continue the development of a five-year plan with the states and lead the Commonwealth’s role in life event services.

The DTA had led the Commonwealth’s efforts since life services was formalised in the federal government’s first digital strategy in 2018 and had been dedicating significant personnel to the work.

Life events is a human-centred way of conceiving services that come with events that transcends single agencies or jurisdictions, like the birth of a child.

While popular in other nations, the varying frameworks, funding responsibilities and digital capabilities across federal and state jurisdictions have meant the approach remains a significant challenge in Australia.

After the approach was backed by a landmark audit of the myGov platform last year and with states and territories already agreeing to collaborate on life events, the DTA was put to work on developing national narrative and priorities throughout 2023.

It produced a document for the Secretaries’ Digital and Data Committee – the regular meeting of heads of Canberra’s tech heavy agencies – ahead of last month’s federal budget.

“The consequence of that was that we were looking at options to bring forward a costed approach to reinvigorating the life events aspects,” DTA chief executive Chris Fechner told Senate estimates on Friday.

The Albanese government opted not to fund specific life events work but did provide certainty for myGov and increased funding for the Commonwealth’s digital identity system, the likely main access point for any joined-up services or information about them.

Finance minister Katy Gallagher said life events will be a “constant piece of work” and varying capabilities are presenting challenges, including funding splits.

“More and more people will expect easier access through government systems and they won’t really care whether they are state or territory or Commonwealth. The ultimate aim is interoperability and alignment,” Senator Gallagher said.

“But I would say states are at different points. Some states have invested a lot. Others are still working off paper based-systems for some of their services. So there’s a different capability… As we are making investments, we need to go in with our eyes open, allowing sharing of some of these costs.”

Shadow Minister for Government Services and the Digital Economy Paul Fletcher said the Albanese government has “gone cold on continuing the reform push” for life events services.

“Delivering government services around major life events is a smart and intuitive way to ensure a great customer service experience,” Mr Fletcher said.

“The former Coalition Government understood this. Under our leadership, we worked with the States and Territories to reach an agreed national approach to life events in September 2019.”

The DTA will transfer all its responsibilities for life events to Services Australia from July, including the five-year plan being developed with the states through the regular data and digital ministers meetings.

No DTA personnel or resourcing will be transferred to Services Australia, with the much larger agency already responsible for myGov seen as having a better base capacity for the work and experience in working with states on services like the birth of a child.

Mr Fechner said the DTA’s relevant artifacts will be handed over and took on notice how much his agency had invested in life events to date.

Author: Joseph Brookes

This article appeared on InnovationAus.com on 3 June 2024