Above photo: Hon. Gavin Jennings (left), Special Minister of State & Leader of the Government in the Legislative Council, Victorian Government, receiving the RoE award from Mr. Mohit Sagar, Managing Director & Editor-In-Chief, OpenGov Asia
The OpenGov Recognition of Excellence (RoE) recognises government agencies who have achieved excellence in using ICT, often working behind the scenes to make government smarter, more agile, more efficient and more transparent. RoE aims to set new benchmarks of government ICT innovation in the ASEAN & ANZ regions.
Victoria Recognition of Excellence (RoE) is part of OpenGov’s Recognition of Excellence series. In addition to Melbourne, ceremonies have held in Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Jakarta and Manila in 2017. Upcoming RoE ceremonies are scheduled for July 11 and 13 in Sydney and Canberra respectively.
In May 2016, the Victorian Government launched its Information Technology Strategy, 2016-2020, charting directions for open information, digital services, strong modern systems, and increased capability. It has been a year since then and significant success has been achieved. 19 of 22 targeted actions were completed by March 2017 and four more are on track for completion by June.
Below are the 10 agencies which were recognised by OpenGov:
Department of Premier and Cabinet
OpenGov recognised the Department of Premier and Cabinet, Victoria for developing and launching the Information Technology Strategy for the Victorian Government, 2016-2020 and its ongoing successful implementation of the Strategy.
Of the 22 actions due to be delivered by March 31 2017, 19 are fully complete (examples are the ICT Dashboard which covers 187 agencies launched on 14 July 2016 and Performance Indicators developed and published on the Data.Vic website). Two are complete but still going through approval, and one has been intentionally delayed, due to the significant change it entails. Four remaining actions due by 30 June 2017 are on track.
Much of the work completed in the past year relates to reviews and developing performance frameworks, and generally developing strategies or analysis that will inform the next stages. The actions completed so far provide strong foundations for the next stages.
Importantly, two of the actions have led to two major RFTs (requests for tender) being released to market for whole of Victorian Government Finance and Human Capital Management systems.
The rest of the agencies below are presented in alphabetical order.
CenITex
OpenGov recognised CenITex for the successful turnaround of the agency. The ICT shared services agency moved from a $37 million loss four years ago to a sustainable surplus. Service stability as measured by significant outages improved, with a nearly 40% drop in outages over the past 5 years.
Voluntary staff attrition rate peaked at about 19% four years ago. Today it is below 5%. In addition, the agency enjoys the support of a customer base is absolutely committed to collaborating closely with CenITex and with each other to drive the best possible outcomes for government.
All this was accomplished through investments of funds and effort in modernising infrastructure, hard cost-cutting decisions and most importantly, resilience, professionalism and commitment of the staff.
Taken together with the finalisation of governance arrangements and a performance management framework developed during 2016, CenITex will play a critical role in the digital transformation journey ahead.
Department of Economic Development, Jobs, Transport and Resources
OpenGov recognised the Department of Economic Development, Jobs, Transport and Resources (DEDJTR) for Australia's largest and fastest free WiFi network, VicFreeWiFi.
VicFreeWiFi was launched in Ballarat and Bendigo in December 2015 and in Melbourne in September 2016, as part of the State Government’s $11 million Victorian Free Public Wi-Fi Pilot.
The pilot program was led by DEDJTR, and supported by telecommunications provider TPG and the City of Melbourne, City of Ballarat and City of Greater Bendigo.
VicFreeWiFi is available in outdoor public spaces in the Melbourne, Ballarat and Bendigo CBDs. The largest free public WiFi network of its kind in Australia, the network provides a combined coverage zone of over 600,000 square metres across the three cities and is one of the most advanced public WiFi networks in the world.
VicFreeWiFi not only helps cater for Victoria's fast-growing demand for connectivity in urban areas, but also provides world-class communications infrastructure for collaborative projects and trialling advanced connected technologies.
Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning
OpenGov recognised the Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning (DELWP) for its successful 12-week trial of Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems (RPAS), more commonly known as drones for use in land and environmental management, for tasks ranging from koala tracking to monitoring of planned burns and assisting with the broader identification of hazardous trees that pose a safety risk.
The RPAS technology uses remotely sensed data, similar to that of a satellite, to source video and thermal imagery. A range of sensors have been used in support of DELWP’s land and fire management responsibilities.
Department of Health and Human Services
OpenGov recognised the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) for the Family Violence Referral and Triage Portal. This system, a cornerstone of the Government's response to the growing problem of family violence, is an excellent example of digital transformation to improve information sharing across multiple government agencies.
The system manages referrals from Victoria Police to the Department of Health and Human Services and other government departments and community services organisations. The portal allows referrals to be efficiently and accurately triaged and securely communicated to agencies, with all authorised parties able to see who the referral has been sent to, check on status and report on outcomes.
The project was implem
ented in the department's Platform+Agile method and is a great example of the benefits of this approach in a complex, multi-stakeholder, project that required collaboration, co-design and rapid delivery of a scalable and trustworthy system.
The system has been in use for six months and has been well received by users across the human services sector. Analysis and reporting from the new system is already providing insights into further policy and service delivery improvements.
Parks Victoria
OpenGov recognised Parks Victoria for its under-development CRM system.
Parks Victoria is developing a new CRM system, which will integrate the multiple siloed systems, delivering front-facing customer services. The CRM development is being done using an agile project methodology. There are four different business areas, that run four different systems at the moment. They’re working with the project team and the development partners to configure the new system to meet their business requirements.
Public Record Office Victoria
OpenGov recognised the Public Record Office Victoria (PROV) for the development of the PROVisualizer tool, the first interactive archival data visualisation tool in Australia. It is a handy tool to get a sense of the kinds of public records PROV holds.
Users can search by keyword or by government function and then click through to see the series within the collection. Importantly PROVisualizer gives archivists and record-keepers a taste of what the recent Records-in-Context ICA standard could look like, as it is based on a graph of entity inter-relationships as opposed to a hierarchical model.
Sustainability Victoria
OpenGov recognised Sustainability Victoria for SV Enabled and the Energy Efficient Office Buildings program.
SV Enabled (SVEN), a new customer relationship management system, was launched to help maintain strong stakeholder engagement and partnerships. By providing a single source for all stakeholder data it has reduced duplication, provides consistent, reliable information and a better understanding of stakeholders’ needs. SVEN has facilitated better understanding and coordination in engagements and tracking of enquiries and community issues to ensure more efficient response. In addition, SVEN allows for integration of contract data with stakeholder information. This has streamlined our procurement processes and created a paperless approval process.
The Energy Efficient Office Buildings (EEOB) program was designed to assist owners of mid-tier commercial office buildings to reduce costs and environmental impacts via improved energy efficiency. Mid-tier buildings often contain outdated and inefficient technologies and the buildings are often operated well below potential. The program provided assistance to 20 building owners to undertake three stages of work: a detailed opportunities analysis; building tuning implementation; and monitoring and verification.
Typical improvements implemented through EEOB includes installing modern temperature sensors to ensure that heating and cooling is responsive to real ambient and indoor temperatures, installing modern building management systems to optimise how plant and equipment work together, and to detect and rectify problems quickly, installing occupancy sensors to reduce unnecessary lighting in common areas and Installing carbon monoxide sensors in car parks, so that exhaust fans run only when a build-up of exhaust gases is present.
University of Melbourne
OpenGov recognised the University of Melbourne for leading the National Connected Multimodal Transport Test Bed.
On 6th January, the University signed MOUs with 17 public and private sector partners: VicRoads, Public Transport Victoria (PTV), Department of Economic Development, Jobs, Transport and Resources, the City of Melbourne, the City of Yarra, ITS Australia, CUBIC, PTV-AG, HERE Maps, Siemens, Ericsson, Telstra, nbn, WSP Parsons Brinckerhoff, HMI Technologies, Transdev Melbourne, ConnectEast and Mobility as a Service Australia.
From April, it is collecting data on vehicles, cyclists, public transport, pedestrians and traffic infrastructure, such as signals and parking. The area is being equipped with advanced sensors for measuring emissions and noise levels and communications infrastructure, such as wireless devices on vehicles and signals. The data will allow the transport system to be more responsive to disruption and more user-focused.
It will deliver insights into traffic planning, pedestrian flows, public transport efficiency and freight movements, thereby helping prevent traffic jams and crashes, and reduce travel times and carbon emissions. It will help understand the impacts of emerging disruptive technologies such as autonomous, on-demand, shared mobility systems.
Victoria Police
OpenGov recognised Victoria Police for its BlueConnect Program of works that is connecting police and the community through technology.
The roll-out of 10,000 iPads and iPhones over the next five years will give the frontline direct access to real-time information while they are out in the field. This will allow for safer, smarter and fa
ster policing while reducing duplication and radio chatter.
BlueConnect is also introducing a new intelligence management solution that will change the way Victoria Police collates and evaluates its information, with easier access to data to analyse emerging issues and trends. The solution will quickly draw information from a number of databases and, using sophisticated visual analytics, will join the dots in terms of more complex crime.