Deliver improved and more unified services

The Minister for Digitising Government, Hon Judith Collins KC MP, has tasked the GCDO with leading and guiding public service agencies to deliver an improved and more unified customer service experience for digital government services.

This reflects a clear global trend for government services to be designed with customers at their centre. Digital government services in many other countries and jurisdictions offer a coherent experience and brand across multiple service delivery channels and entry points.

We’ve done some analysis and are confident that New Zealand’s digitisation of key services is comparable to the UK, Australia and Canada. This is something to be proud of, and all the great work already being done by agencies gives us a solid foundation to build from.

But there’s more work to do, and we need to make sure we’re heading in the right direction

The key issue (when compared with other key jurisdictions) is that New Zealand’s government digital services are disjointed and do not provide a consistent customer service experience.

This is not good enough – we know we need to do things differently and make it easier for people to deal with government.

The Service Modernisation Roadmap will drive progress towards an improved and more unified customer service experience for digital government services. This work will further the vision set by the Strategy for a Digital Public Service — to modernise and transform the public service and put New Zealand’s people and business at the centre of government services.

Service Modernisation Roadmap

The Roadmap focuses our attention on making progress across 4 key layers

These layers are interconnected, with the bottom 3 layers serving as critical enablers for driving progress towards an improved customer service experience and public service efficiency.

• Customer service experience
• Reuseable digital components
• Data, digital and security foundations
• Doing digital well.

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Customer service experience: Shifting from inconsistent agency-based service delivery approaches towards a better, unified customer experience of digital government services.

Reusable digital components: Maximising the value of government investment by ensuring key digital components are reusable across government.

Data, digital and security foundations: Getting the right foundation in place to deliver efficient, trusted, secure and privacy-protecting digital services.

Doing digital well: Improving how we govern, invest and build skills to support sustainable digital service delivery.

Making progress towards a unified customer service experience for digital government services will require effort and investment at all 4 layers of the Roadmap.

We need less working in silos, and more working together

The key paradigm shift required for us to make progress on this vision, especially in a fiscally constrained environment, is for agencies to work together as default.

We no longer have the luxury of working in silos. This approach does not deliver optimal value for money or system benefits and does not contribute to a better customer experience of digital government services.

We need to focus on working as a unified public service and developing shared components that can be re-used and extended.

First phase of the Roadmap (FY 2024/2025)

The first phase highlights high-impact and already-funded initiatives that contribute to this vision. The Roadmap has a rolling 3-year horizon and will be refreshed annually.

I want to send a strong message that the status quo approach to digitising government is no longer viable. The Roadmap highlights some of the good work key service-delivery agencies have committed to doing together and share with each other.

Responsibility for delivering Roadmap initiatives remains with lead agencies, with the GCDO function and other system leads laying down the paving stones and smoothing the way ahead for us all.

This phase of the Roadmap is the first step in a journey to simplify and consolidate government’s digital platforms and move agencies away from procuring bespoke solutions. We’re going to be requiring agencies to work together and deliver value for the system, not work in isolation.

The economic benefits of a better customer service can be significant

This is a real opportunity for us to do things better — deliver excellent services:

• more efficiently and effectively
• in a way that drives productivity both within government and across New Zealand.

Treasury’s CBAx cost-benefit analysis tool values a saving in compliance time for New Zealanders at NZD$8 per 15 minutes of time saved.[Footnote 1]

Research shows that about 30 minutes of compliance time is saved for each transaction that is done online.[Footnote 2]

Scaled up across millions of customer interactions, there are opportunities for significant returns on investment from driving a more efficient, customer-centric approach to digital service delivery.

A new approach to government’s digital investment is required

The first phase (FY 2024/2025) of the Roadmap is fully funded and requires no additional investment. It enables better planning and investment in out-years.

Responsibility for delivering Roadmap initiatives remains with the lead agencies.

Work is ongoing to address the challenges with the current funding approach for digital initiatives.

Agency digital investment is frequently siloed and agency-centric, with agency investment planning carried out with minimal visibility of the wider needs of the public service.

Previous large-scale agency digital investments have benefited individual agencies but have not delivered re-useable digital assets or cross-agency benefits.

This siloed investment approach is unaffordable and unsustainable. Accelerating progress on service modernisation may require reprioritisation of assigned funding for digital initiatives and a more strategic direction for future digital investment.

I expect agencies to lean in to this new direction

I thank those agencies who have contributed to this first iteration of the Roadmap and demonstrated their commitment to our new direction for New Zealand’s digital government.

In the first instance, we gathered initiatives from Digital Executive Board agencies and key service delivery agencies.

The Digital Executive Board is an interdepartmental executive board established under the Public Service Act 2020. As GCDO, I chair the Board, which comprises other key public service and digital system leads, including the:

• Public Service Commissioner
• Government Chief Data Steward
• Government Chief Information Security Officer.

Collectively, the Digital Executive Board has responsibility for developing and overseeing the delivery of the Roadmap.

As we embark on the next phases of this work, my team will be engaging with the wider public service to find additional high-impact digital initiatives to include in future iterations of the Roadmap.

I want to be clear that I expect agencies to get on board. Only together can we succeed in delivering the kind of world-class digital government experience that New Zealand deserves.

We have a fitting whakataukī to reflect this:

Ehara taku toa i te toa takitahi, engari he toa takitini.

My success should not be bestowed onto me alone, it was not individual success but the success of a collective.

We’re committed to highlighting good work done by agencies

This process has already started. We’ve worked with The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) to share the good work they’re doing with Business Connect and FormBuilder, a ‘no code’ form digitisation tool that helps agencies deliver better services to businesses.

We want to see MBIE become the hub for government’s business services ecosystem and we’re pleased to be able to highlight and encourage agencies to leverage MBIE’s work.

Delivering digital applications for government funding and grants

I am keen to highlight good service delivery work happening in agencies. I invite agencies with initiatives on the Roadmap to work with us to share their stories with the system though blogging to digital.govt.nz. You can do so by contacting info@digital.govt.nz.

And I ask all agencies to consider how they can start working with one another to develop and deliver digital initiatives that benefit the system, not just your own agency or sector.

I look forward to sharing more examples of your good work. I’ll keep you updated as we develop and deliver the Roadmap.

Ngā mihi,

Paul James

Government Chief Digital Officer
Chair, Digital Executive Board