'Expansive' myGov audit to begin within weeks

Former CSIRO chair David Thodey will lead an “expansive” audit of the federal government’s myGov digital platform that was an election pledge of the new Labor government.

Thodey will lead a five-person audit panel that also includes former human rights commissioner Edward Santow, eSafety commissioner Julie Inman Grant, Uber’s former head of global economic policy Amit Singh (now managing director, Accenture Australia), and social epidemiologist Professor Emily Banks.

Thodey is no stranger to high-profile reviews, having previously chaired an independent review of the Australian Public Service which, among other things, offered a vision for better use of digital technologies to deliver government services.

The myGov audit will begin “in the coming weeks” and report back to the government “by the end of the year”, government services minister Bill Shorten said.

There is already a two-year program for improving myGov that is in-train that will end in mid-2023, Shorten noted.

“The audit will help to inform next steps for the upgraded myGov platform,” he said.

Shorten said that there had been some “significant updates to myGov” recently, the first “in a number of years”.

But he said that myGov needed to “be constantly improved” if it is to achieve its full potential in unifying government digital services.

In a statement, Thodey said the panel “will consult with myGov users, states and territories, the Australian Public Service and peak bodies to help inform the recommendations.”

“This new audit will build on the independent review and complete the roadmap for myGov’s role in realising that vision for government service delivery,” Thodey said.