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Almost any job in the Treasury is enabled through information management and technology - policy development and research, forecasting and modelling, collaboration and stakeholder relationships, parliamentary workflow, financial and payroll.
The purpose of the Information Management and Technology Strategy 2010-2012 is to set out how the Treasury's business priorities will be advanced through investments in information management and technology over the next 3 years.
The Strategy builds on the achievements from the IKM Strategic Plan 2007-2009 and has four elements with the aim of ensuring information management and technology investments maintain the Treasury's day-to-day operations and deliver priority business projects.
The Strategy contributes towards building and sustaining key capabilities in the Treasury, in particular efficiency and productivity, collaboration and improvement and adaptability. The Strategy also acts to mitigate key departmental high-level risks, particularly the inability to deliver key services and products efficiently.
A business change management strategy will ensure that business changes flowing from these strategies can be absorbed to make it easier for staff to do their work.
What have we done in the last 3 years?
Delivery of the IKM Strategic Plan 2007-2009 has provided new capabilities to the Treasury.
We have moved to strengthen governance of information management and technology investments through the establishment of the Information and Knowledge Management Advisory Board. Business projects are prioritised according to a prioritisation framework and IT Principles are used to guide solution designs. Principles to guide information management and knowledge management have been developed. A project management framework has been established, with project boards oversighting business projects. A forward capital investment plan has been developed. An end-user computing governance framework has been documented to govern critical spreadsheets and databases. The Library Consultative Committee has been established to guide investment in the Treasury library.
Business projects have been delivered across 4 streams of work:
- Promoting best advice: intranet content improvement; Treasury Search; TRIM upgrade to provide enhanced search capability.
- Efficient workflow: policy implementation reporting and tracking; staff administration management; SAP upgrade; secure communications between the department of Prime Minister and Cabinet and Treasury; Unified Revenue System.
- Sound forecasting and modelling: improved data management and reporting tools to support Domestic Economy Division forecasting activities are being developed within the Odysseus project;
- Knowledge sharing culture: analysis and design of a solution to enable collaboration and a knowledge sharing culture within the Treasury.
We have continued to deliver a range of business-as-usual information management and technology services to "keep the business running". We have actively sought feedback from clients through IT Client satisfaction surveys in 2008 and 2009 and through informal channels. Our clients are generally satisfied with the services they receive. We have been able to respond to some concerns through extending the IT help desk hours, reviewing various email policies, developing targeted training for using outlook productively and providing more information to assist staff improve performance of their desktops.
We have improved financial management through proactive management of large contracts including voice and print services, regular monitoring of costs in the programs and services budget, and oversight of project budgets by project boards.
To keep our business running over the last 3 years we have made various technology investments including a new data centre to support our servers and storage technologies, and new communications infrastructure for our internal local area network. Looking to the next three years we will need investment in new desktop technology, a review of our infrastructure architecture to position IT Operations to handle increased demands for information storage and mobile work with minimal cost, and an upgrade to our voice technology - the PABX.
We have recruited staff with new skill sets to deliver business solutions across the agency, including business architecture, business analysis, project management and application testing. We have recruited professional security advisors to assist us mature our IT security policy and monitoring.
Four priority strategies for 2010-2012
1. Improve productivity in the Treasury
The focus of our investment is to improve productivity.
We need to provide staff with a reliable and high performing desktop supported by high availability server, storage and communications technology designed to provide business continuity for critical services and business processes. Our IT environment also needs to include features that allow innovation, such as the new web 2.0 tools that will support joint production of documents within a safe and secure environment. To do this we will:
- Provide a secure, reliable and high performing desktop with modern software, including access to the latest tools to support innovation.
- Improve the availability of our server, data storage and communications infrastructure by providing more redundancy across our infrastructure.
- Develop more mature business continuity and disaster recovery capabilities to support continuity of service for critical business activities, such as production of the Budget.
The Information Management and Technology Program for 2010-11 includes business projects that will:
- Deliver business intelligence tools to support Domestic Economy Division forecasting activities.
- Improve information management capability by
- Redeveloping the intranet as a repository for managing content within Treasury.
- Strengthening record keeping through renewing policies and providing support by automated tools.
- Automating simple business processes, such as identified parliamentary workflows.
- Providing team sites on the intranet to assist teams work more productively.
- Enable priority business projects to assist management of specific purpose payments and foreign investment.
This Program will be reviewed annually, to ensure that the priority projects are being completed and business benefits are realised.
2. Secure and control our environment
Information security is an extremely high priority for the Treasury, given the data and information in our systems. At the same time we need to recognise that business requirements demand a risk management approach to IT security. We will:
- Regularly review IT security policies to ensure a balance between business needs and IT security measures.
- Provide training so staff understand the risks of the current cyber security environment and behave accordingly.
- Review security infrastructure architecture to ensure it is positioned to safeguard against cyber threats.
- Prevent data leakage through monitoring and reporting.
- Ensure that the various anti-virus software products are effective.
- Continue to build our relationship with DSD to ensure that we have the advice and support we need to safeguard our IT environment.
3. Improve Client Service
Today we have too many help desks and no clear definition of the range of services that are available to assist staff to do their work. We will provide a sin
gle service desk for all information and technology services and improve access to services through a service catalogue and self-service options.
We will become more transparent through understanding how much it costs to deliver our services and provide more management reporting on demand for services.
Over the next three years we will:
- Provide a single service desk for all information management and technology services.
- Improve access to services by providing a service catalogue and offering self-service options.
- Streamline and automate user support processes.
4. Improve the usability of our solutions
Our systems should be intuitive and easy to use, with fewer mouse and keyboard clicks required. Our systems should also be easily upgraded to new versions of software in a way that minimises training required for users. We will:
- Design solutions that are easy for staff to use.
- Provide information in context, so that staff are presented with the information they need to do their work.
- Reduce the number of mouse clicks to access information or complete automated tasks.
- Develop a technology learning strategy to facilitate on-line learning.
Information Management and Technology Strategy 2010- 2012: High level Milestones
