Archived document - Public Sector Commission - The Western ...

e-Government Strategy for the Western Australian Public Sector
Effecting Change: The Key Enablers of e-Government
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5. Collaborative Relationships – Looking for Synergies
The traditional agency approach to planning and development within the
public sector has led to considerable duplication of effort, expertise
and expenditure.
Re-developing applications or systems that are already present in other
agencies has become common practice, with very few agencies looking
outside of their own resource base for knowledge,
ideas or best practice. Transformation to
e-government necessitates that agencies seek to
identify common requirements between their core
business and that of their partner public sector
service providers so as to reduce duplication and
costs at both an agency and whole-of-government
level.
This change in approach opens the door to a range
of collaborative opportunities where agencies can
capitalise on the wealth of skills and information
being maintained across government in relation to
a common customer base.
e-Government can also assist in leveraging
internal efficiencies. For example, the simple
sharing of resource-booking systems can facilitate
more efficient usage of existing government
resources such as conference rooms. More
advanced collaboration will see the sharing of ICT
systems, human resources, knowledge and
business processes.
Through collaboration, agencies can grow a culture of ‘best practice-ship’
whereby mistakes of the past need not be repeated and considerable time
and cost savings can be made in the research and development of new
modes of service delivery.
The Role of OeG
The Shared Land Information
Platform (SLIP) project demonstrates
the principle of cross-agency
collaboration at work within the
Western Australian Government.
SLIP’s lead agency, the Department of
Land Information, is working with other
agencies to deliver a shared resource
for managing and disseminating land
information for a variety of businessspecific
purposes. SLIP represents a
standards-based approach that reduces
infrastructure and system maintenance
costs for all participating agencies, but
also provides for the opportunity
for a combination of services that
were previously prohibited by
independent approaches.
OeG will drive collaboration in e-government projects through the
development of key governance and policy
frameworks required to facilitate cross-agency
initiatives. This process will proceed in conjunction
with other central agencies such as the Department
of Treasury and Finance.
OeG is working to identify areas where internal
efficiencies can be leveraged across the public
sector through collaboration. For example,
determining the availability of other government
employees across agencies would be made easier
through a common groupware system.
OeG will also serve as a conduit between agencies
for the sharing of information about planned ICT
projects. Where appropriate, OeG may also initiate
cross-agency projects in conjunction with a
lead agency.