Western Australia sets out digital to-do list in first roadmap release

The Western Australian government has released the first roadmap on how the state government will implement its whole-of-government digital strategy.

The government of Western Australia published its 2021-2025 digital strategy last June centred on four priorities: Better services, informed decisions, safe and secure practices, and digital inclusivity.  

A fifth priority, supporting digital foundations, has also now been included, with the new priority being aimed at improving the government’s internal operations to ensure it can achieve its other four priorities.

Taking account of those priority areas, the Digital Strategy Roadmap 2022 [PDF] details there are currently 22 initiatives across 12 government agencies that have already started or are scheduled to start.  

Some of these specific projects include onboarding at least 60 agency websites onto the current WA.gov.au platform by the end of the 2022 financial year, as well as developing a whole-of-government self-service portal that would be accessible via WA.gov.au and introducing a digital identity service for individuals and businesses to access services via the self-service portal in the same time frame.

The roadmap also detailed how the Office of Digital Government has established a central, whole-of-government data sharing and analytics function, with the team now developing a catalogue of government data to improve reusability and standards.

On achieving its safe and secure priority, the state government’s roadmap said the Office of Digital Government aims to have 30 agencies connected to its security operations centre, so there’s improved visibility of cyber threats.

“By then the Office of Digital Government will also have started establishing a cyber security uplift team that can assist agencies improving their defence against cyber security threats and a hunt and incident response team, which can proactively identify risk and help agencies manage incidents if they occur,” the roadmap said.

In November, the Western Australia Auditor-General slammed the state’s local government entities, after determining they were not managing cyber risks well.

“We tested the audited LG entities’ publicly accessible IT infrastructure and found vulnerabilities of varying types, severity, and age. The vulnerabilities included disclosure of technical information, out-of-date software, flawed or weak encryption, insecure software configuration, and passwords sent in cleartext over the internet,” the Auditor-General’s audit report said.

“44% of vulnerabilities were of critical and high severity, with a further 49% of medium severity.

“Known critical and high severity vulnerabilities are generally easy to exploit and expose LG entities to increased risk of compromise.”

A “digital inclusion in WA” blueprint is also in development as part of the digital roadmap that will serve as a guide and help address barriers of connectivity, affordability, skills, and design in the hard border state.

Developing a new human resources management information system to replace WA Health’s legacy human resource and payroll system and delivering a cloud-based electronic document and records management system for the Department of Mines, Industry Regulation and Safety are also on the to-do list in the roadmap.

The roadmap will be updated twice a year to include information on new projects and progress of existing ones, the state government said.

“This new Roadmap offers WA industry and community an exciting preview into some of the convenient, smart and secure digital projects that are on track to be delivered by 2025,” Minister for Innovation and ICT Stephen Dawson.

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