Digital Services Post Pandemic: The Local Government Perspective

The pandemic accelerated digital technology adoption. But it was not all equal, and the experience across local government is a case in point.

Building further on the article series inspired from that published in Australia’s Nobel Laureates Volume III, where we highlighted the amazing speed of technology adoption through the pandemic and then considered the sectors that we work with at IPG. The broad view was very positive on how technology, community and government interests aligned to accelerate technology adoption and create many benefits.

As we consider those sectors we work with at IPG, in Government, Local Government, Utilities, Health and Community Services and Growing Companies, this article unpacks the Local Government sector.

The phenomenon put forward previously and well unpacked by Scott Galloway , Professor of

Marketing at NYU Stern School of Business, is also very true of Local Government. The pandemic accelerated pre-existing trends, underway prior to the pandemic.

This is not exclusive to Australia either. A University of Pennsylvania report1 of 150 municipalities revealed that the pandemic has highlighted pre-existing issues and exasperated them. Local Government is the closest government to the community, has many opportunities to add value to the life of citizens, but is also challenged from many directions.

The pre-existing trends include increasing expectations of digitisation by citizens and customers, pressure across a range of revenue sources, a wide breadth of service delivery, with commensurate breadth in technology, requiring a wide range of skills, in an environment where those skills are in strong demand.

With pre-existing trajectories accelerated, those that had digitisation journeys underway were better placed to accelerate much more rapidly than others. This is very true of Local Government, although many local governments are relatively small organisations, and with that comes the ability to be nimble and adjust quickly. So, their future is far from being set in stone.

As previously stated, the digitisation journey is about more than the technology. The technology is an important ingredient, but just as important, or even more so is the culture and capability to utilise technology to support shifts in business strategy and policy, or to deliver existing policy more effectively.

The impact on digital technology maturity and capability through the pandemic was generally positive for many local governments. There were some differences, but most local governments moved forward.

The first difference between local governments was similar to the difference in Governments and that is based on their digital aspiration and reflected by their willingness to invest in digital technology and as a result, their pre-existing culture, and capabilities.

Consistent with our commentary on Government, the adoption of enterprise platforms and cloud varies significantly across local governments. Those further advanced on this journey have the better integration of processes and data, and better foundations to support agility and scalability of new services.

For those councils with the contemporary digital platforms and resources, their acceleration through the pandemic was greatest. They had stable adaptable platforms and the capability to

By Mark Nicholls

Navya driverless EV shuttle bus charging on Victoria Square in Adelaide city on a day.

leverage them to meet the rapid and emergent demands of the pandemic.

In some cases, due to legacy technology that was not easily adapted to remote working or digitised service delivery or simply through the lack of having sufficient skills, some Councils struggled to evolve quickly enough for staff and citizen needs.

And there were many in between these two ends of the spectrum.

In a local government context, enterprise platforms and cloud also support the achievement of smart city objectives. Sometimes smart city objectives are sought after by Mayors and Councillors, because of the potential community benefits that are available. However, not all Councils have the platforms in place to support the integration of smart city technologies into the Council in a scalable way. And not all Mayors and Councillors appreciate these technology inter-dependencies. This makes many smart city initiatives more of a pilot than something that creates sustainable and scalable outcomes.

While having contemporary platforms is an accelerator, it is not a mandatory pre-requisite. Some local governments are yet to move on from their legacy platforms but through agile and iterative development are creating incremental improvements in service delivery and did so through the pandemic. Workflow, automation, and analytics are examples of where some are making progress. See our reference to this in our government article.

In some Councils, the speed of execution left some hangover issues. Some Councils effectively took two steps forward and maybe 1-2 steps back as missteps needed rectification and rushed implementations created duplication.

Where local governments introduced new technologies to support staff and citizens' digital needs, this was delivered additional to existing practices, rather than replacing existing practices. One common example is the introduction of Office365, including SharePoint online and Teams. This created massive acceleration in work from home capabilities and in integrating records and information management into normal day to day practices…a massive positive.

However, it also added at least one new records management solution (SharePoint, Teams, OneDrive) to Councils which already had existing records management solutions (Records Manager, Confluence, OpenText, Recfind, others). And this is an area which has significant policy and legislative obligations on Councils. As a result, access to records become more fragmented and complex, effective records management more challenging and policy compliance risk has increased. We are working with a number of Councils that are now cleaning up these areas to maintain the gains made and removing some new risks that had emerged as a result of the speed with which they reacted, and the duplication created. As the pandemic progressed, some Councils faced shifting populations creating various demands on local government, which in turn created demand in digital technology needs. Digital technology spend was then under pressure with competition for funding across multiple areas. Those organisations further down the digital maturity journey could cope with the increase in scale and demands more easily than those that were relying on legacy technology.

Those relying on legacy technologies were less able to scale, or in doing so consumed more financial and people resources in doing so. This redirection of resources takes away from improvement priorities and dedicates more resource into just maintaining the status quo.

However, all of these challenges are solvable. And local governments are generally less political and much closer to understanding and needing to satisfy community service needs. If this includes digital technology as a potential solution, then so be it. But it will require building the culture and capability as well as the digital technology to support Council objectives.

We would welcome your views and input on all aspects of this article, so please get in touch to share your views.

For more on getting the building blocks of innovation delivery in place, see this article, by IPG CEO, Mark Nicholls

A RESILIENT DIGITAL AUSTRALIA

Digital readiness is a defining characteristic of successful 21st century societies, and where we choose to invest is key.

Digital readiness is defined as how well-positioned a country, state or territory is to benefit from the digital economy across seven components: basic needs, human capital, business and government investment, ease of doing business, startup environment, technology adoption and technology Infrastructure.

Understanding our digital readiness supports decision-making in key areas where further investment or acceleration of capabilities may be required.

Cisco released its second Australian Digital

Readiness Index in 2020, providing a snapshot of Australia’s evolving digital capability at the state and territory level, and acting as a guide for where investments are needed.

Australia remains among the forefront of digitally transformed nations, ranking 12th across the globe in terms of digital readiness (according to Cisco’s 2019

Global Digital Readiness Index). It follows Iceland and

Luxembourg, and stands among Singapore, the US and European nations.

Little did we know that two years later the value of those investments would be repaid many times over by providing Australia with a robust and comprehensive digital capability that has played a critical role in our response to the

COVID-19 crisis. While the pandemic has exacted a high economic and social toll, its consequences would have been much greater had Australia not already made significant investments in digital readiness.

For example, the deployment of high-speed national network infrastructure has meant many organisations can keep their staff both safe and productive by enabling them to work from home. That same infrastructure provides a vital connection for thousands of students who participate in remote learning and has become the backbone for remote health consultations, keeping many frontline responders safe. Likewise, investment in digital skills has allowed businesses and government agencies to accelerate their rollout of digital services, including bricks-and-mortar restaurants and retailers who have switched to e-commerce to continue trading.

The investments will play a vital role in helping Australia navigate through the post-COVID-19 world, but further work is needed if we are to achieve the productivity uplifts necessary to bring Australia out of recession and ensure we remain competitive. Cisco’s global research has always shown a high correlation between digital readiness and economic prosperity, and other nations are stepping up their investments accordingly.

By Ken Boal

This infrastructure will deliver to its full potential only if we invest in building the skills of our people to use, create and defend digital services.

Australian industry has a desperate and growing need for people equipped for a dynamic, digitised world

In addition to the need for ongoing support of the higher education sector, Cisco has joined forces with TAFE Directors Australia and our partner Optus to call on the Australian Government to assess the growth in technology-intensive jobs requiring sub-degree-level qualifications in order to help the TAFE sector more rapidly prepare for, and respond to, anticipated demand. We have also called for funding of the development and delivery of micro-credential digital programs to help in the reskilling and upskilling of workers displaced by recent developments.

Australian industry has a desperate and growing need for people equipped for a dynamic, digitised world, including having general digital skills that help businesses to move up the value chain as industries further automate. Development of "blue tech" or digital trade skills will be vital to meeting those needs.

Critically, we must also be sure not to lose sight of the need for the outcomes of these investments to be shared equitably across Australia. Equitable access to digital services and training represents the 21st century equivalent of the age-old Australian concept of giving everyone a "fair go". The COVID-19 crisis has highlighted the importance of continued investment to ensure those communities that are least served digitally today do not experience additional hardship from future events.

It is important that we don’t become complacent about Australia’s digital readiness. The index highlights the need for accelerating new investment with a focus on improving Australia’s global competitiveness and bridging the divide between states to build further societal resilience. Growing digital divides within and between states need to be addressed for Australia to unleash the totality of its digital potential. Government, industry and academia will have key roles to play in empowering our country to become a global digital leader and build resilience for our economy. The example of rapidly emerging countries such as Singapore, which ranked first in the global Index, should help Australia set its ambition for digital readiness.

Digital readiness is the key to economic prosperity, but it is also critical to building societal resilience. Only by continuing to invest in our digital capabilities can we maximise the benefits in the good times and ensure we are best placed to manage the future crises that will inevitably come our way.

Ken Boal is vice president, Cisco, Australia & New Zealand.