drive agency investment and procurement towards optimal outcomes.
These principles form a framework used to assess budget bids and forward investment planning.
Government organisations must use the principles to guide all digital investment or procurement they may be considering.
The principles
1. Act as a joined-up and coherent digital government system
All digital investments and procurement decisions must align with the Digital Government Target State. This ensures the public sector operates as one connected, secure and scalable system.
Agencies must adhere to Government Chief Digital Officer (GCDO) mandates, strategy, standards, policy and guidance.
Where agency digital strategy and policy conflicts with GCDO strategy and policy, GCDO strategy and policy takes precedence.
3. Invest for public value, not agency preference
Investments must be focused on delivering the best value for money for the system and across the investment’s lifecycle.
Investment and procurement decisions must prioritise system capability, interoperability and better outcomes for New Zealanders, not just individual agency outcomes.
4. Implement once and re-use
Agencies must prioritise re-using or extending existing digital system assets, and plan to use new system assets as they become available.
Digital system assets include:
digital public infrastructure
agency cluster assets (for example, shared back-office systems)
All-of-Government digital procurement mechanisms (for example, common capabilities and contracts)
other system assets (for example, the integrated data infrastructure).
5. Be open and interoperable by design
Systems and contracts must prioritise open standards, standardised outcomes and interoperability.
Agencies must avoid becoming locked into dependence on any single vendor.
Investments must support innovation from trusted third-party organisations where practicable.
6. Adopt agile investment and procurement
Investment and procurement must prioritise prototyping, modular approaches and agile delivery, enabling solutions to be incrementally delivered, scaled up or adapted as needed.
7. Buy, don’t build
Agencies must use proven, commercial off-the-shelf solutions and configure rather than customise where possible.
8. Cloud first
Agencies must align with government’s Cloud First policy.
9. Design and deliver joined-up customer service experiences
Agencies must:
take a system view of the customer
develop services that span agency boundaries when it makes sense
enable access to services through trusted third-party service providers.
10. Treat data as a strategic asset
Secure and effective data flows are a foundation of the Digital Government Target State.
Investments must:
build in data by design
support responsible data use that enables connected and efficient public services while maintaining data security and privacy
support a single view of the customer.
11. Embed security and resilience
Agencies must take a risk-based approach to prioritising security and resilience as foundational elements in their digital investment and procurement.
Security by design must be built into agency alignment with the Digital Government Target State.
12. Adhere to system lead mandates, standards, guidance and rules
Key system leads include:
Public Service Commission
the Treasury
Government Chief Data Steward (Statistics New Zealand)
Government Chief Information Security Officer (Government Communications Security Bureau)
Government Protective Security Lead (NZ Security Intelligence Service)
Government Procurement Lead (Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment).
Get advice early
If your investment initiative contains significant components of digital, data or ICT, it’s important to engage early with the Government Chief Digital Officer.
