Digital Public Service Hui 2021

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Welcome page on an orange background. Five people are next to each other in a row while happily looking at a presentation on their digital devices (for example, mobiles, laptops and tablets). There is white text at the top of the screen, stating: ‘The Digital Public Service Virtual Hui — August 26, 2021’.

White text introduces the speaker, Melissa Clark-Reynolds, as ‘Event facilitator and MC (master of ceremonies)’. Melissa is seated in a room. Behind the speaker are bookshelves and 2 display boards with Post-it® notes.

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Melissa: Ngā mihi mahana ki a koutou, my name is Melissa Clark-Reynolds.

I’m a digital strategist, a professional company director and I work as a foresight practitioner, which is the same as a futurist.

I am so excited to be facilitating the inaugural Digital Public Service Hui, hosted by the Government Chief Digital Officer and supported by the Digital Public Service.

This Hui is to connect digital leaders to each other, and to figure out how to collaborate and work smarter to accelerate digital services and digital ways of working right across the government sector.

It excites me that as a citizen I might have the same experience in engaging with government that I can have with many private sector organisations — to be honest, I think you can probably do it even better.

Sometimes people confuse digital and IT. Digital goes so much further, bringing together digital mindsets, ways of working, skills and technology together that will make a real difference.

And good digital strategies put user experience and customer needs at the centre, and I would love to see the New Zealand government do even better at this.

This hui is all about building on the success of others. Sometimes we think we have to build everything ourselves, but I truly believe we are in the age of integration and not invention.

So please join the hui on 26 August at 13:00 hours online via Zoom.

You can find more information on digital.govt.nz. See you there. Mā te wā.

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Outro page on a dark blue background. The white text says to ‘Register now at Digital.govt.nz/digital-public-service-hui’.

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Welcome page on an orange background. Five people are next to each other in a row while happily looking at a presentation on their digital devices, for example, mobiles, laptops and tablets. There is white text at the top of the screen, stating: ‘The Digital Public Service Virtual Hui — August 26, 2021’

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David: E ngā mana, e nga reo, e nga karangatanga maha huri noa i te motu tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou katoa.

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White text introduces Dr David Clark as the ‘Hon Dr David Clark, Minister for the Digital Economy and Communications’. The minister is in front of a light and dark brown background, which has art forms throughout, especially prominent to the right of the screen.

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Dr Clark: To the distinguished leaders amongst you, to all of you and the many connections amongst us. Greetings. Welcome to the first Digital Public Service Hui.

The theme of today’s hui is: ‘innovate, collaborate and accelerate’.

As the Minister for the Digital Economy and Communications, I see the exciting digital transformation happening across the whole of our New Zealand government. COVID has only accelerated this. Digital tools and ways of working have enabled the public service to keep delivering to New Zealanders.

We’ve all had to be flexible as our home and work lives have blurred. Being an adaptive and resilient public service is now essential. Our lives shifting online has highlighted how fundamental digital inclusion is for New Zealanders’ wellbeing.

That’s why, as part of the Digital Inclusion Work Programme, DIA has completed a tranche of digital skills training for small and medium sized enterprises owned by Māori, Pacific peoples and disabled people. To connect these different digital streams, we need to take a systemic and strategic approach. And of course, we need to have a clear idea of what we want for our country.

I’m pleased that so many of you have come together to consider the contribution you are making to the digital government and discuss how to achieve even more impact for New Zealand and our people.

Today’s hui is anchored in the spirit of service and gives you a platform to discuss and test the direction and momentum of the Strategy for a Digital Public Service. Now is the time to share your contributions to digital government and learn directly from your peers.

Beyond your work within the public service, I challenge you to lift your sights on how your mahi can engage with the bigger vision for our Digital Strategy for Aotearoa. There’s a cross agency team working on a discussion document which will support the public engagement I want to have with Kiwis.

The Digital Strategy will provide direction for our journey towards enabling everyone in the community to flourish and prosper in a digital world. To support this vision, the discussion document has 3 themes: Mahi Tika, Mahi Tahi, Mahi Ake.

So I’ll start with each of them in turn.

Mahi Tika or Trust has a vision for digital technologies that are created and deployed in ways that help users to feel safe and secure online.

Mahi Tahi or Inclusion has a vision for all New Zealanders being able to access and engage confidently with the digital solutions that are useful to them.

And Mahi Ake or Growth has a vision for our tech sector as a fast growing and inclusive sector and for our businesses being quick to adopt technology that serves them.

I’m keen to test with Kiwis the priority areas in the discussion document and get their feedback. Engagement with Māori will be critical to this.

For the public service, the digital strategy will help to better coordinate the existing data and digital work going on across government. It will also assist in forming connections between different agencies that are advancing their own work in the digital realm.

The pace of change is significant and unrelenting. We need to take action together to realise the full benefits of digital for Aotearoa. I’ll leave you with some prompts for your discussions later today.

• How are you redesigning services for citizens?
• What role are you playing alongside the communities in designing your work?
• And finally, what does the phrase ‘Innovate, collaborate and accelerate’ mean to you?

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The closing screen is dark blue with an orange bar at the bottom. In the bottom right corner, there is white text for the website, Digital.govt.nz.

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Dr Clark: Nō reira, ngā manaakitanga ki runga i a tātou katoa, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā tatou katoa.

[Visual]

Welcome page on an orange background. Five people are next to each other in a row while happily looking at a presentation on their digital devices, for example, mobiles, laptops and tablets. There is white text at the top of the screen, stating: ‘The Digital Public Service Virtual Hui — August 26, 2021’.

There are now 2 windows sharing the screen. On the left, Melissa Clark-Reynolds, the Event Facilitator and Master of Ceremonies, is seated in front of an orange background with the following words in white text, in the top left corner of the window: ‘Innovate. Collaborate. Accelerate.’

The logo for Te Tari Taiwhenua Internal Affairs is in the top right corner of the window in white text and graphic. The window on the right has a dark blue background with an orange heading that says: ‘Opening keynote’. The white text below this heading introduces Paul James as the ‘Tumu Whakarae mō Te Tari Taiwhenua, Secretary for Te Tari Taiwhenua Internal Affairs and Government Chief Digital Officer’.

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Paul: Thank you. Kia ora tatou, ngā mihi o te ra kia koutou kataoa. Ka mihi kia koutou kua whakarauika mai ā wairua ki te wahakamana I tenei kaupapa whakahirahira. Ngā mihi mahana kia koutou katoa.

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There are still 2 windows sharing a screen, but the window with the dark blue blackground that introduces Paul James is now on the left of the screen. There is a new window, on the right, which shows Paul James speaking in front of a dark blue blackground. The following words are in white text, in the top left corner of the window: ‘Innovate. Collaborate. Accelerate.’ The logo for Te Tari Taiwhenua Internal Affairs is in the top right corner of the window in white text and graphic.

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Paul: Kia ora everyone and yep, I’m Paul, Secretary of Internal Affairs.

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The window showing Paul James speaking is now in the full screen.

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Paul: You know you’ve made it when you’ve got that job title ‘secretary’, and New Zealand's Government Chief Digital Officer [GCDO].

So I’d just like to add my own words of welcome to you all for joining us today. So this hui is a platform for you and for us to talk collectively about how we collaborate, innovate and accelerate digital government. As Melissa said, and thank you for that introduction Melissa.

We thought carefully about continuing on with our hui in the current context. We checked in with panel members. We checked in with some of the participants, and we got the message back that no, people were really keen to continue.

And if we can’t operate in a digital fashion, who’s going to? So if there’s one thing that COVID has taught us last year and again in the last week, it’s that digital is more important than ever. And so a big thank you to all of you for all your efforts last year and again for last in this week keeping your agencies, keeping your services for New Zealanders going. And a big thank you for joining our hui today. Really like to thank the panellists. We’ve got a great lineup of contributors, digital leaders from across the public sector and very busy people.

So I’m very grateful for their generosity with their time. And that they’re going to stick with us. So you heard Peter Hughes isn’t able to join us today. He was hoping to, he’s a big supporter of digital government. Hugely supportive of your work and our work.

And as Melissa said, knowledge that we can all face some tech and bandwidth issues. I’m coming to you today from Island Bay, my home. Where despite fibre and ultra-fast broadband, the internet is a bit glitchy. So I’m coming in by — my apologies — I’m coming in via my phone. Fingers crossed. I’ll be with you.

So just want to start off with the biggest picture if you like, strategic direction for digital government in Aotearoa. So we’ve just heard from our minister, Minister Clark: his welcome video which really highlighted the significance of digital transformation across the country, across New Zealand, and his intent to build out a strategy for that across the whole country.

Well, in our own little slice of that 18 months or so ago, we launched a Strategy for a Digital Public Service with the ambition that the public service gives New Zealanders the same digital experience they’ve become used to in other parts of their lives.

We want a unified, modern, efficient, adaptable public service. We want citizens and businesses to be at the centre of government for us to organise ourselves around them. To achieve that, we need really good foundations. We need to work together to common standards, openness, interoperability. Right across the public sector.

We also need investment. Public sector agencies are supported to invest in modern, secure digital infrastructure that benefits the entire public sector. We need new ways of working where we are agile and innovative. Most importantly, we collaborate.

Across all of this we need leadership, people and culture. We’re not just tech, although the tech will be cool. In a nutshell, that’s the Strategy for a Digital Public Service. And as GCDO, my job is to help lead and drive that, supported in that by the Digital Public Service branch here at Te Tari Te Whenua DIA.

We have a vision of working with and through agencies to drive and deliver our customer-centered digital government. So we’re all about working with you as agencies, we’re all about digital and all about end users for New Zealanders.

It’s exciting for us that we’re starting to see that Strategy for a Digital Public Service start to turn to action, not just ideas on paper. In the last 18 months, there’s been steady uptake of the Strategy’s principles and these are increasingly being reflected in government agencies own digital strategies.

We’re also seeing them in role descriptions for senior digital leaders and just filtering out through the public sector. Great. Around 40 per cent of agencies now have their own digital strategies to guide their work. And we think there is another 10 or 15 per cent of agencies actively finalising strategies.

We see this taking shape. For example, LINZ [Land Information New Zealand] is making great strides in modernizing the land online system, and this work strongly reflects the Strategy for a Digital Public Service. LINZ are working across their organisation with Agile, finding new ways of working so progressively overhauling a 20-year-old system and transform how they serve their customers: New Zealanders. We’re also seeing agencies work increasingly collaboratively, working together on digital, commit to open sharing and working together.

Recently, we surveyed agencies and more than half of them reported some level of interagency collaboration. Often within the sectors, social sector, economic sector, environment sector.

In the budget last year, DIA ourselves received permanent funding for SmartStart, and we’re now working with IR [Inland Revenue], MSD [Ministry of Social Development], MOH [Ministry of Health] and MOE [Ministry of Education] to expand the scope and utility of that integrated digital service from childbirth into early childhood years.

In another example, Education New Zealand is currently working on diversification of international education in the current context and are proactively aligning that work with the Strategy for a Digital Public Service and using it as a guiding document.

We’re collaborating with other government agencies and the international sector to co-design the future state of the sector. We’re looking at how they adopt customer-centric design in an iterative approach and a focus on growing digital capabilities and processes within their sector. A great example.

We all need to keep going with this sharing of expertise and people, knowledge, best practice and lessons from successful collaborations. Agencies have also told us they want a bit more support and guidance from GCDO to help improve a public sector wide digital transformation.

Just wanted to go back to the COVID context, and as Melissa said, it’s had a huge impact on digital. So we all know that part of digital government is helping out staff, senior leaders, chief executives and even ministers build their own digital capabilities. Unlike Melissa I’m not a digital native, I didn’t start coding in my teenage years. We’ve really seen a step change in the understanding, awareness of digital through COVID that’s been fantastic.

And there’s no doubt that our collective response to the impact of COVID-19 last year and again currently has been a litmus test for the Strategy for a Digital Public Service. So the alert levels, in particular 4, and lockdowns, fundamentally disrupts the operating environments for government and public services. It’s a real challenge to business continuity, and it happens at pace. But most of the public service hasn’t skipped a beat, at least from the outside looking in.

Government has gone digital in the last year. So those digital capabilities are really central to the public sector’s ability to respond to COVID and to build resilience into our services and for our customers. We’ve really seen accelerated uptake of offsite cloud enabled operations.

We’ve seen some great examples of digital. The establishment of the wage subsidy scheme by Treasury, IR, MSD and MBIE [Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment] in less than a week running off the IR BT [Inland Revenue Business Transformation platform] platform. The small business cash flow scheme by MBIE, hugely, rapidly scaled up virtual education for school-aged children by the Minister of Education, seriously impressive and included around 80,000 digital learning devices being delivered, and the COVID-19 Tracer App by Health, a critical tool in our fight against COVID. This all confirms we think that we’re headed in the right direction with a strategy and a framing of what we want to do.

What we see now is we need to work together to take a more strategic and coordinated approach. Not just being opportunistic, but seeing the opportunity to be deliberate, to integrate services, collaborate over investment, flexible and trackable and scalable digital infrastructure.

Minister Clark touched on his 3 parts to the strategy and talked about trust. To really drive for digital government, we will need the trust and confidence of the public.

We’ll need New Zealanders to connect, engage and share information by digital channels confidently and with trust. So to achieve that, we’ll have to work hard to maintain what we might call the social license, all these digital services and new technologies.

Just want to touch on a couple of GCDO’s priorities and how we’re thinking about that trust through those. One of their top priorities is modernising government’s digital identity infrastructure. So reliable digital identity arrangements that are common across the public sector would open up huge benefits for New Zealanders right across government, but also for the wider economy.

As many of you know, we’re right in the middle of finalising draft legislation to design and enshrine a digital identity trust framework and set up the process to establish rules to implement this framework. So the heart of that work is trust. It’s in the title and it’s in the work. We’ve established a Te Ao Māori working group to help us develop the trust framework and rules. We’re working hard on building that out.

That digital identity work in our program is also creating new collaborative opportunities as individual agencies figure out that their digital identity needs are similar, and so we connect agencies with each other, with the services that we’re offering and with new vendors who are entering the market. It’s a question for you: how is a common approach to digital identity being built into your strategies and your organisation?

We all know that digital government won’t work without a focus on addressing digital inclusion. So we have a digital inclusion program, it’s finding ways to address the challenges, which mean that around 20 per cent of New Zealanders face some form of digital exclusion. Just not good enough for the future that we want to chart out for our country.

We’ve put effort into research and understanding and coordination. Like all things digital across government. It's everyone’s job, not just ours. But there’s a role for us. So we’re really looking to try and communicate clearly that digital inclusion is not just about devices and connectivity.

It’s also about trust, motivation and capabilities that people have to use and access digital services. And it’s complex. So our user experience research program has helped fill in knowledge gaps about vulnerable groups, and we’re sharing that across the public sector to help inform those developing online services and implementing accessibility.

So we’re working with other agencies to better coordinate digital inclusion efforts to and we’re looking at what a big shift in digital inclusion could be. And as Minister Clark mentioned this week, it will play an important role in this wider thinking about a digital strategy for Aotearoa.

One of the things which I’ve hinted at or touched on is security and privacy. People on this call will know the importance of that as we look to increase our online operations services presence. Security and privacy safeguards and mitigating cyber-attacks and risks are key.

So one of the things we do in the GCDO is we operate a Privacy Maturity Assessment Framework to help agencies understand their current level of privacy capability, assess their maturity in managing personal observation and identify where they can improve. It’s not an accountability tool. It’s a tool to help agencies lift their game. And for us to see where there are system issues.

Working with agencies, we’ve just refreshed that maturity framework, and we've completed a beta test to evaluate what works and what needs adjusting, so we’re providing updated guidance to the public sector on emerging issues like facial recognition and other biometric technologies and on using them in an ethical way.

And we’re working with partner agencies in this by [using] statistics, but also the Government Chief Information Security Officer to help ensure that the public sector agencies have all the information they need to be resilient in the face of cyber threats.

I want to touch on the Māori/Crown relationship. We’ve seen that in our hui today. We’ve had that threaded through opening up in the right way and being referenced at a range of points.

One of the critical aspects and one of the things I’m really proud of the Strategy for a Digital Public Service is that it seeks to embrace the unique aspects of New Zealand, in particular, Te Tiriti o Waitangi supporting the public service to meet the aspirations and needs of Māori.

So what are we doing? We recently signed a Mana Ōrite Agreement with the Data Iwi Leaders Group. In June this year. That agreement complements existing agreements between that same group and Statistics New Zealand. It’s a compact, it’s a relationship. It’s a statement of intent, and from it will flow our joint work program, where we work together. It’s a great opportunity to help ensure Māori are involved in decisions relating to digital transformation in the public service.

We already have some good examples of co-design, such as the Ministry of Health work with Te Arawa and the trial in Rotorua of the COVID card. I think it’s an area where more needs to be done. And it’s been woven into our work on digital identity.

We know that building authentic and enduring relationships with Māori will benefit all New Zealanders. The last 18 months has proven that the New Zealand public service has gone digital. It’s also opened more and more senior leaders eyes to the significance and importance of digital and what it requires and what the challenges are.

We need to take this increased awareness, and keep making the case that keeping up with the changing world requires investment, requires us to keep moving. Got to be adaptive and responsive. It’s also highlighted what we’ve always known, that digital transformation is a team game.

Can’t just go it alone, in individual agency settings. Customers operate across agencies. We face common problems. We have to look for collaborative solutions to those. So I really urge you to think strategically about your approaches to engage with the Strategy for a Digital Public Service, to learn from your colleagues and to come away from our hui today with real opportunities to accelerate that trajectory in digital government.

As Minister Clark said, there will be some focus over the next few months on a broader Digital Strategy for Aotearoa. Our Strategy for a Digital Public Service will nestle comfortably as part of that, and we will keep going with it.

So your work is critical to not only responding to unexpected events like global pandemics or the changing operating context that we’re in, but it’s critical to New Zealanders, its citizens, and it’s critical to changing the digital government.

Look forward to my team and your teams and all of us working together in this mahi. Noho mai rā, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou katoa.

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There are 2 windows sharing the screen. On the left, is the window with Paul James in front of the dark blue blackground. On the right, Melissa Clark-Reynold is in front of an orange background.

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Melissa: Oh, kia ora Paul, that was really useful and you probably haven’t been able to see but there’s been quite a lot of discussion going on in the chat alongside. So I just really acknowledge you for that.

[Visual]

Welcome page on an orange background. Five people are next to each other in a row while happily looking at a presentation on their digital devices, for example, mobiles, laptops and tablets. There is white text at the top of the screen, stating: ‘The Digital Public Service Virtual Hui — August 26, 2021’.

Melissa Clark-Reynolds, the Event Facilitator and Master of Ceremonies, is seated in front of an orange background with the following words in white text, in the top left corner of the screen: ‘Innovate. Collaborate. Accelerate.’ The logo for Te Tari Taiwhenua Internal Affairs is in the top right corner of the screen in white text and graphic.

[Audio]

Melissa: So what we’re going to do as our final keynote, is I’m going to hand back to Ann-Marie Cavanagh and we’re out of time, really, so I’m not going to blather on too much. I’d much rather hear from her.

So over to you, Ann-Marie.

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The camera switches to Ann-Marie Cavanagh, the keynote speaker. The same background remains.

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Ann-Marie: Thanks, Melissa.

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There are now 2 windows of equal size splitting the screen. The window on the left has Ann-Marie speaking in front of the orange background. The window on the right has a dark blue background with an orange heading that says: ‘Closing keynote’. The white text below this heading introduces Ann-Marie Cavanagh as ‘Deputy Government Chief Digital Officer [DGCDO] and Deputy Chief Executive for the Digital Public Service’.

[Audio]

Ann-Marie: Look, I think from my side, I’m conscious of the time, but I just wanted to acknowledge the really great conversation that we all had and, you know, hope everyone’s made it back after the break out discussion groups.

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The screen on the right has now disappeared. The window with Ann-Marie speaking in front of the orange background is now in the full screen.

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Ann-Marie: I really enjoyed the exchanging of stories and opportunities and challenges we all face and certainly in the group that I was in we talked a lot around those opportunities and challenges. And what struck me was there was an energy, a real energy that we’ve kind of started.

And I think the question I’ve got for everybody is how do we keep that culture and energy moving? I think as we move forward after this event. So, yeah, it’s just been fantastic.

So what I thought I’d cover off is a little bit about innovation, but also just talk through some of the key priorities and key levers, I think that we’ve built within the GCDO and DPS [Digital Public Service] branch. So I just wanted to talk through a few things. So I remind you of our purpose, our GCDO Paul James talked to the wider strategic context.

He highlighted the need for us to collectively collaborate, to innovate and accelerate. And I’ve certainly heard a lot of that today on this hui. But as the DGCDO, I really want to focus on how we make this real day-to-day. And what I’ve heard is we need to collaborate.

We want to know where to go for information, and we really want to be able to co-create. So to me, that’s something around how the Digital Public Service team can help support, connect the dots. Be able to accelerate some of the fantastic work that we see across the public sector.

We also want to make sure that you’re modern and resilient. And boy, did we learn that through COVID.

We really want to make sure that we’re meeting New Zealanders’ needs in an environment that’s constantly changing. And I think some of the topics that came up in the panel discussion, certainly from Shane, around some of the experiences that they’ve had through COVID-19.

We need to be modern and we need to be resilient. And today, we’ve been really privileged to hear from digital leaders from a range of sectors across government, as they’ve all reflected on their progress around digital transformation.

My reflection on the panel was how diverse we all are as leaders and what roles we play and how we all work together around digital transformation. And I think also a big shout-out to Jason for really taking on multiple roles, CFO and CIO. That’s a big job. So well done on that.

I think we also talked about how agencies are adopting Agile ways of working and working flexibly and building trust, and all of those insights were fantastic. And I think of interest to me was the way our guests highlighted how important it is to model and demonstrate their softer relationship skills when we really need to move the dial. So attributes such as openness, partnership and collaboration, I’d probably also throw one more in, and that’s humbleness.

We always need to work and we need to work together. So how do we, how do we bring those soft skills forward? We also need to chart our course through an environment where we can’t predict the outcomes and that takes leadership.

Who knew when we were putting this event together that we’d be back in lockdown?

But we really need to help to lead and we need the skills to lead through that environment like facilitation and by providing clarity and in the breakout group I was in we talked about being clear on purpose and clear on needs, clear on business requirements. And I think that’s something that we all have to think about.

But we also need to think about how we work across a diverse group of people and thinking about how we approach things iteratively.

We also need to think about the style of leadership that can lead through uncertainty and empower a workforce to perform. And I think for me, I’m really excited to see how we can keep this approach in our engagement from the Digital Public Service branch across you and your agencies.

We’re also thinking about what levers we have, and we’re committed to really supporting you in your efforts to bring the Strategy for a Digital Public Service to life. We know that a number of agencies are revamping, revisiting their digital strategies, and that’s fantastic.

The Minister and Paul also talked around the Digital Strategy for Aotearoa, so we’re really committed to help you navigate that environment and think about how we can bring those respective strategies forward. But what I wanted to really touch on today was sort of the core activities that we’ve been working on across the public sector and also particularly within the Digital Public Service branch.

So one of the big levers that came up and no doubt came up in a number of groups is investments. Our 2021 investment intentions exercise showed investment intentions for ICT and digital was over 7 billion for the next 5 years.

Seven billion. That’s a lot of money. And I think that’s just the intentions. So we know that investments across the system have been more focused on fixing the current system and current risks. But we know that we’re not quite where we need to be.

The current lifecycle is biased towards a 1-year process which limits the adoption of agile digital funding models. Developing a system investment model would support agencies on the path towards digital maturity, driving more success stories. So it’s clear from some of those breakout sessions, investment is an area you want more support.

So following this hui, we will undertake to focus on this area and in our engagement with you. The other lever I just wanted to talk about or opportunity is around the common process model.

So the common process model provides agencies with best practice standard business processes online for 6 key areas: finance, human resources, enterprise work, health and safety, asset management, workplace health and safety procurement, and soon to include payroll. And DIA became a custodian of the common process model on 1 July this year, following its successful transition from Inland Revenue.

And we’re now looking at developing our all-of-government service and we’ll share more about our strategy service and products in the coming months.

The Government Chief Digital Officer have identified over 217 million over 5 years in budget-21 intentions for HR information systems, financial management information systems and payroll investments alone.

So we know there’s a big area there. And I think looking at how we can adopt common business processes for back office are opportunities I think that we need to look at. And at the moment, we’ve got 40 agencies using the common process model.

And our vision by 2023 is that all agencies are using it. So if you haven’t heard about it, please connect up with the Digital Public Service team and we’ll be happy to share more details.

Lever 3: all-of-government solutions, so all-of-government solutions are set up. Although I know that some agencies are not yet fully aware of the full value proposition behind the common capabilities. And so we think across the system, we have significant opportunity to further develop all-of-government solutions extensively.

The consumption of common capabilities for 2021 will be just over half a billion. So 516 million, which is up from the previous year. So Jane Kennedy and the team have really been working hard and we’re seeing an increased spend through Marketplace as a result of those efforts.

So it’s a great sign. But we know that we can do more.

Lever 4: innovation funding, and this came up in the break-out group I was in.

So the Innovation Fund has opened again today. So back in 2018 cabinet mandated the continuation of the Public Service Innovation Fund with a budget of 5 million per annum. It’s been a brilliant catalyst for projects and pilots across government to be tested using a relatively small amount of funding, usually under one million with a short time frame. So if you haven’t heard about it, please check it out on the website, Digital.govt.nz.

A great example of this was NZTE’s Innovation Barometer, which was funded through the Innovation Fund and enabled 4 organisations to participate in a pilot. And as I say, I’m really excited that the fund has opened again.

So today, please go online. Take a look. Applications close on 26 September [closing date has been extended to 26 October] of and you’ll find all the information that you need on Digital.govt.nz.

And lastly, the other opportunities to Lever 5, data insights, we’ve really been expanding our capability in this area. So we’ve developed a number of digital dashboards reflecting our agency engagement. And these dashboards take the data we get from you and turn them into interactive tables and graphs which enable us to get a detailed view of investment capability and priorities.

And following on from the hui today, we’ll be offering workshops in the next few weeks to let you take a look at your agency’s dashboard and see the insights you’ve gathered. So something for the future. And we’ve heard a lot around sharing data, sharing, collaboration, but also, more importantly, how do we share intelligence across the system?

So at this point, I’ll start to wrap up. I really want to encourage you to keep thinking about the role of leadership in the digital environment. Also to think about those levers that I talked about.

Please, please connect up, please get in touch with the Digital Public Service team. There’s lots of information online. But we really want to start to accelerate digital government’s trajectory.

And now, I think is the time to really build on today and to continue to make change happen. So at this point, I’ll head back to Melissa. Thanks, Melissa.

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There are now 2 windows sharing the screen. The left window is Ann-Marie in front of the orange background. The right window is Melissa in front of the orange background.

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Melissa: Oh, kia ora Ann-Marie. That’s just fantastic.