UK Government Digital Service links with Australia's Digital Transformation Office

The United Kingdom's Government Digital Service (GDS) has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Australia's Digital Transformation Office (DTO), under which the two organisations will share expertise and staff. Australia's DTO is unashamedly modelled on the GDS: when launching the agency Australian prime minister …

[Oengus]

Governments learn from the mistakes of others - I don't think so.

"GDS has a five-year head start that Australia can learn from"

Knowing our government and their track record it is more likely to be "five years of mistakes to catch up on".

[Phil Kingston]

Re: Governments learn from the mistakes of others - I don't think so.

Nah, mate - our lot will find a whole new set of ways to botch it.

[allthecoolshortnamesweretaken]

Another great opportunity to rack up bonus miles in factfinding missions / conference junkets! What's not to like?

[@digikoolaid]

This has a lot of potential for the DTO staff imported from the UK. There's quite a few, and it's likely that they have family members and relatives to visit in the UK. The cost of the flights and the Travel Allowance should help them a lot. That can be added to the TA being paid to Sydney DTO people to fly down to Canberra, stay in hotels and fly back to Sydney. The value of all this innovation to the Commonwealth and to the community is totally awesome @digikoolaid

[D Moss Esq]

MOU consequences

It has been suggested that these two organisations have only signed an MOU because they read in the papers that major companies do that sort of thing. Having a charter sounds quite important. Also, doing things internationally.

In fact, the MOU isn't just attitudinising. Its consequences will be quite practical. We could, for example, one day, have an Australian chief executive of GDS here in the UK.

Looking further into the future, it is conceivable that our two countries share a common language and even collaborate over a resilient international telecommunications network.

Of course there may be friction. Which MOU wins if there is a conflict between the Australian MOU and the Korean one engineered by Mr Maxwell in 2013? But then of course that's why we retain a seat on the UN Security Council.

[Warm Braw]

Digital public services that are so good, people prefer to use them

I think the main complaint about the Rural Payments debacle was not that it was crap (which it was) but that there was no alternative. I've hope they've tested their implementation of "prefer" so that it covers the corner cases when there is zero or one option.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Digital public services that are so good, people prefer to use them

Aye - prefer to use them compared to what, exactly?!

[onefang]

Re: Digital public services that are so good, people prefer to use them

my-gov is so good that Centrelink preferred to use it, until they decided they prefer to not use it. It used to be that you could sign into my-gov, use single sign on to bring up Centrelink without signing in again, then leave Centrelink and go back to my-gov. Centrelink broke the exit path, now you sign out of Centrelink, but have no link to go back to my-gov, you have to manually go back there and sign out once more. It's like Hotel California.

[Denarius]

whats not to like ?

Foreign advisers ? Check

Known to be expensive? Check

Track record of Waste ? Check

Track record of failure? Check

Not much use? Check

Something that a competent web graphic designer could write up in a week once requirements clear? Check

Perfect Oz gov project. We colonials must provide our academic, CEOs and managerial classes with free rides fact finding missions to foreign holiday centers of excellence.

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess a few first-class trips to the wizards in Oz will help use up that GDS budget.

[Anonymous Coward]

Turning left on boarding

Yes, Civil Service rules for flights of that duration means it's OK to book Upper/Club/1st.

[Anonymous Coward]

G'day cobbers!

You call that digital transformation strategy? Now *this* is a digital transformation strategy!

[Red Bren]

Makes sense

It's easy to share staff between two sites if they're based halfway between them.

Chennai to London ~8200km

Chennai to Canberra ~9000km

Just sayin'

[Vic]

An Open Letter to the Australian Public

On behalf of my fellow Brits, I would like to make the following statement:

We're sorry. Really, really sorry. We have no control over these buggers - they're entirely following their own script these days.

If you find a way to neutralise the threat, please do let us know.

Boom Shanka,

Vic.

[Fruit and Nutcase]

Lane-Fox

DTO - you need to get hold of Baroness Lane-Fox of Soho (that's London, not the former Sydney nightspot) to do a report. No worries about the cost of the flights - she can book something cheap from lastminute.com

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/directgov-2010-and-beyond-revolution-not-evolution-a-report-by-martha-lane-fox

https://gds.blog.gov.uk/2013/11/29/thank-you-martha/

"f you’re a regular reader of this blog then you’ll know how often we refer to Martha’s report. It’s impossible to overstate its importance to GDS.

It gave government the impetus to assemble this team, and it gave us a mission and a mandate to get on with making world-class, digital by default services.

We’re over two years into that job. The work involves people from all around government inspired by Martha to make radical changes to how we deliver public services. I’m pleased to say that there really is a digital culture right at the heart of government now, and that’s all down to Baroness Lane-Fox."

[onefang]

"Or learn about mistakes to repeat"

FTFY