This week we welcome a guest post from Andrew Foot, who is EMCs resident Public Sector expert. He shares his views on the ways in which Government is using, could be using and should be using technology to deliver better services to the public.

Technology enabling a better Government for citizens

By Andrew Foot

In the Public Sector, you seem to be forever at a crossroad – what to invest in and where is a constant debate, but one thing that remains a universal priority, regardless of your political persuasion is improving the quality of service for the people Public Servants serve. Today much debate still rages around the cost of the National Broadband Network for instance… but few will argue something does need to be done to improve the ability of all Australians to be connected to one another, and the rest of the World for that matter. Such is the importance of technology!

Photo attribution: http://www.flickr.com/photos/sporkwrapper

The hottest thing in the Public Sector today remains virtualisation. Second to that, but interconnected at the same time is a less sexy topic – connectivity and bandwidth. It is an important challenge that needs to be overcome. As an example, if you look at the Department of Education in Victoria, you have 1,800 public schools. Today the bandwidth is not good enough to link them all, so you can’t centralise and get economies of scale and management, therefore you miss the subsequent savings. It’s the same for Health, and it is an issue across all States. So… while virtualisation is the fabric that enables the Cloud, there are inherent issues with its viability unless connectivity and bandwidth is addressed.

Data centre consolidation is clearly key. In NSW the shared services agencies have been mandated to consolidate down to one, using health and education as the anchor. For the Department of Defence, their goal is to go from 420 to nine. This is massive! The Victorian Health Department too uses various forms of infrastructure as a service via one shared service to great effect. This is all enabled by improvements in technology and EMC has played an important hand here. But what about at the application layer I hear you ask!? Application stacks are also being rationalised, so this is clear a priority that extends beyond what was instigated from the Gershon Report. Still it goes hand in glove with infrastructure. You can’t have one conversation without the other. Furthermore, you can’t have the debate at all without mentioning Security (but this is such a big topic in and of itself, I’ll save that for another Blog).

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Enterprise Content Management · records management

Public Private Partnerships (PPP’s) are commonplace in Australia wherein State or Federal Government may enter into a commercial agreement with a construction or infrastructure consortia in order to secure funding for major projects. These are highly complex, very sophisticated agreements that can be worth literally billions.

Our guest blogger, Julie Sweet, shares an experience that demonstrates how the same principle has been applied to offering a simple and efficient document management and retrieval service. Yet her success story also highlights some extremely convoluted processes that continue to create unnecessary barriers for business owners.

Julie Sweet - Guest Blogger

We are often told ‘the system’ is a complex and confusing thing but until some part of your personal or professional life is directly affected, it can be difficult to understand just how frustrating it can be to find yourself caught up in that infamous red tape.

When the ambitions, goals and dreams of the public are thwarted by the sometimes arbitrary behaviour of various Government departments and agencies, it can take every ounce of resourcefulness, patience and hyper vigilance to stay on course until the right outcome is achieved.

Even then there is no guarantee you won’t end up tearing your hair out. I have my own personal bald patch courtesy of the rigmarole I went through when trying to register the name of my company – Birth, Marriage and Death Certificate Service and its subsidiary Birth Certificate Courier Service.

I had a goal to launch my web service www.certificatesonline.com.au and associated call centre 1300 CHANGE. The model is essentially a centralised document retrieval service for the public. It offers services such as making it fast and efficient to obtain a passport, process the required documents before and after a wedding and helping those grieving the loss of a loved one request the necessary documentation without any additional stress.

Let me illustrate why I saw a need for a centralised service such as this.

Did you know that to register a business name nationally, you need to complete application forms plus payment with seven (7) different State/Territories Government Departments? (more…)

birth certificates · Case Management · centralised management · citizen services · FOI · Freedom of information · Government · legal cost · personal identification · records management

Due to overwhelming demand and the hot bed of activity that government is going through at the moment, I have decided to extend the survey so that more people can have their say.  The closing date will now be March 31st 2011.  So go to my survey here and make sure to let me know what you think about government and their efficiency levels… and don’t forget that the winner will be helping their charity of their choice because EMC has agreed to donate $500 to your chosen cause!

records management · Survey