Qld Govt flags $40M digital transformation investment

The Queensland Government is investing $40 million into its digital transformation strategy, giving local partners a chance to get involved with the proposed changes.

As part of the new funding outlined in the 2017-18 State Budget, the local government identified a handful of areas that it will be injecting the fresh capital into.

In changing the way people deal with the government, it outlined an allocation of $20 million to continue transforming government services through the program.

Minister for Innovation, Science and the Digital Economy, Leeanne Enoch, said it will work with all tiers of government and partners to provide customers access to information and services, and will transform government services.

“We are working to make it easier for Queenslanders to interact with the State Government. Our customers expect us to deliver an experience similar to other organisations they interact with,” she mentioned.

An additional $1.1 million has been set aside for the Open Data initiative, where the local government , over the next two years, plans to increase the publication of “high-value data sets” and improve the visualisation of data.

“The work that will be delivered under the Open Data initiative will enable access to free, useable Queensland Government data to encourage the growth of new and innovative services, projects and businesses,” she said.

Enoch also said this investment in ICT accelerates the digital transformation of government services into open data and data-intensive business.

The local government will also be investing $12.7 million over two years towards the first stage of a project to provide ready access to digital records held by the government and an additional funding of $6.2 million in 2017-18 for the first phase of the Science ICT Remediation and Renewal Program.

“It will allow us to ensure that scientific information is not only integrated, coherent and reliable, but provides new and more accessible scientific insights and data, and supports quality decision-making across government,” she said.

As reported by Computerworld, these funds are part of a multi-million dollar budget that aims to continue to digitalise government services transform the delivery of scientific information, and safeguard state records for the future.

“Our challenge is to improve government service delivery against this backdrop of digital transformation, open up our data to provide the building blocks for the knowledge economy and make better use of government data to unlock Queensland’s full potential,” Enoch said.

Computerworld also outlined other areas of investment that the Queensland Government will be investing into, including the Queensland Treasury’s Office of State Revenue Transformation Program, ICT projects at CS Energy, software for the Public Trustee of Queensland, ICT initiatives at Queensland Police Service, and ICT projects at the Queensland Ambulance Service.