Federal departments and agencies that consistently put up ICT and digital proposals that do not satisfy architectural standards or other requirements are in the sights of the committee advising cabinet on budget spending.
Finance Minister, Senator Katy Gallagher, told senate estimates last night that the expenditure review committee has taken an interest in the technology proposals being submitted for funding.
The admission came in response to questions from Senator James McGrath that asked whether agencies submitting non-compliant proposals, both via the Digital Transformation Agency (DTA) or direct to Cabinet, should face “sunlight” – be named.
Under the investment oversight framework (IOF), which came into effect in mid-2021, digital and ICT proposals are required to be assessed by the DTA before they are reviewed by the cabinet.
The framework stipulates that all proposals are be expected to “contain an assurance plan signed off by the DTA and the relevant department”, which will be used to inform the allocation of budget funding.
To comply with this, agencies must meet – and have completed – the Digital Capability Standards Process (DCAP), which the DTA signs off before the federal budget or mid-year economic fiscal outlook (MYEFO).
They are also assessed on the extent to which the proposal is aligned to the Australian Government Architecture (AGA), which – among other things – aims to promote reuse of common software components across government.
New figures show that the DTA assessed 61 percent of digital and technology projects before this year’s budget in May, a marked increase from 49 percent the year before.
By the end of FY24, 90 percent of proposals reached the digital investment body.
In its annual report [pdf], the DTA said “the improvement can be attributed to the increased awareness of the DTA’s role in assessing digital proposals and the understanding of entities to engage early to allow for DCAP requirements to be completed ahead of government consideration of proposals.”
However, the report also noted that, despite the increase, many proposals “did not fully satisfy the requirements”.
The exchange between senators last night suggests that departments and agencies that consistently do not meet the digital and ICT assurance, architecture and other rules are likely to be in the crosshairs of the cabinet.
Gallagher said the expenditure review committee had taken an interest in departments and agencies that consistently put up non-compliant proposals.
“I know as Minister [for Finance] that there are some areas that DTA spend a lot of time either chasing or seeking engagement,” she said.
“It’s a work in progress. We’re not at the name-and-shame point at this time but there are agencies we would like to work closer with the DTA.”
Hunting reuse
Assistant secretary of the AGA and policy branch Tom Marwick said there is “heavy” engagement with a subset of entities on meeting common architectural standards.
“We are currently going through a process of engaging heavily with agencies and users across government to understand how we can best deliver that advice to them to make it consumable, and to deliver and implement it through the investment oversight process,” Marwick said.
DTA CEO Chris Fechner backed the architecture assessments, noting that reuse in federal government is currently relatively low.
“The intention of the architecture is to allow us to classify investments into particular categories to see if we can get opportunities for reuse, or to see if there are existing solutions that work in a particular space,” Fechner said.
“Government does not have a high number of reusable components outside of things like mygov, govCMS and digital identity.
“We believe there’s a high value in government actually creating more of those components to be reused across government, but it takes time to do so, and it also takes maturity across agencies to know where these things are, so part of our work with the AGA is to make these opportunities for reuse more visible than they have been in the past.”
Interpreting the DTA numbers
While some proposals seeking budget funds still are not assessed by the DTA prior to going to cabinet, Fechner noted that many get assessed at later stages.
He also indicated that the published figures on assessments reflect internal prioritisation.
“Some particular proposals are well-structured, well understood, versus ones that have got a high degree of ambiguity,” Fechner said.
“The DTA makes resource allocation priorities to make sure that we look at the ones that have the highest risk or highest impact and apply our resources to those.”
In addition, Fechner noted that DTA assessment may be one of several reviews that a project needs to pass.
Where another review is deemed to take precedence – such as a cyber security review by Home Affairs – the DTA provides some input through that process.
“There are [projects] that are subject to discriminating factors other than the DTA assessment of those as well – Finance, Home Affairs for some cyber security – so we work with other groups to also provide our advice into those so government has a consolidated view of the proposals coming forward as well,” Fechner said.
Fechner noted that the DTA’s assessment work continued after funding decisions are made.
“We have an aspiration to look at all digital investments to see if there’s opportunities for doing them more efficiently, to streamline them, to make them align to policy, but it’s not a fair assessment to say that just because it hasn’t happened prior to budget, that the DTA doesn’t continue to work with agencies at our assurance and benefits realisation process,” he said.
“So, while prior to budget we may have only looked at about 60 percent of those, during the rest of their deployment process, the DTA steps up engagement.
“Once they’ve gone through a [budget] approval process, the DTA works to make sure that there’s an effective assurance plan, effective benefits, and during the lifecycle of those projects that we apply our assurance models and escalation protocols to work with the senior responsible officers to achieve the result that was authorised.”