Capability uplift

Why is this important?

Government is implementing technology changes as part of the IT Strategy to improve IT capability and support a modern workplace. Government employees are also developing better skills to enable the effective use of new and emerging technology, to realise its benefits and to mitigate security risks.

The uplift in IT capability of senior leaders and the broader IT workforce is critical to support evolving project delivery techniques and to ensure empowered decisions are made, which will lead to better outcomes and a more accommodating environment for innovation.

Modern working approaches such as Agile and human-centred design will continue to be utilised and promoted to ensure digital projects can be delivered effectively and government services are customer focused.

Through expert and strategic non-government partnerships we can identify opportunities to better use technology to improve policy design and service delivery and enhance the customer experience.

Key focus for 2019-20

Several successful projects have been delivered over the last three years to upskill government employees. For example, we have successfully built a community of practice for IT project practitioners and administered a range of grants from the Public Sector Innovation Fund. This included undertaking a partnership with Code for Victoria to realise the value of embedding external capability and adopting new ways of working to solve public sector challenges. This collaboration led to the successful delivery of five tools for use by government departments and agencies. These included a Victorian Legal Aid client matching tool for eligibility triaging and Parks Victoria biodiversity atlas.

The focus for this year will be to further develop employees’ digital skills, particularly senior leaders as well as better interdepartmental sharing of expertise and collaboration. This will develop a more joined up and robust approach in harnessing new technology.

Case study: One VPS

One VPS is a whole- of-government initiative to make it easier for VPS staff to support Victorians better.

To achieve this, One VPS is looking to create a seamless public service. It will focus on shared ways of working and strengthening this culture across the areas of people, process and technology.

One VPS builds on and will work with a range of initiatives to unify government in the delivery of outcomes to Victorians, such as Service Victoria and the Single Digital Presence.

Why is One VPS needed?

The needs of Victorians are not restricted to a single department or agency. One VPS will help bring whole-of-government initiatives together and build the capability and capacity across the VPS to work together to deliver better outcomes for the Victorian community.

For example, One VPS is working across the public service to support and facilitate the delivery of a unified Human Capital Management (HCM) system for the VPS, as well as integrated projects such as common HR processes. The delivery of this project will provide a range of benefits such as the ability for staff to easily move between departments and to easily create agile cross-department teams to support the community.

What will One VPS focus on?

One VPS will:

• facilitate the delivery of VPS-wide policies, values and behaviours, as well as consistency in how they are applied
• deliver a seamless and professional back office, utilising shared technology, centres of excellence and common processes to work efficiently with external partners and support our staff to drive public impact
• support a connected, capable and high-performing workforce by building a culture that attracts and retains the best
• foster and promote initiatives that drive a unified approach to the needs of Victorian communities

Case study: Cyber security awareness and training

The Victorian Government is focused on uplifting capabilities of government employees to implement IT solutions that are innovative, contemporary and beneficial. The capability uplift project for cyber security focuses on delivering an awareness communication and engagement program to boost the cyber resilience of Victorian Government organisations.

The Victorian Government Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) has partnered with the Australian Institute of Company Directors and other leading organisations to boost cyber awareness across the public sector through a range of training programs for senior leaders.

The Victorian Government CISO also partnered with federal cyber security agency, AusCERT, to deliver training to more than 40 of Victoria’s critical infrastructure and essential service providers to strengthen their cyber incident management capabilities. The training enabled organisations to be more confident and capable of responding to cyber-attacks.

In addition, the first whole-of-government awareness campaign was delivered in 2018 as a package of videos, posters, fliers, screensavers, intranet articles to encourage the promotion and use of assets by all government employees. The campaign was designed to target three personas: VPS, IT specialists and senior leaders, with a focus on raising awareness about the most common cyber risks and solutions to increase online safety. The package of assets was distributed across government departments.

Following the campaign, 86% of surveyed participants recalled a recent campaign about cyber security and 80% reported an increased knowledge of cyber risks affecting government.

For the financial year 2019- 2020, we are developing a more integrated approach that will be supported by ongoing activity throughout the year.

2016-2020 IT Strategy journey