2024 is shaping up as a big year for NSW on the digital and technology front.  

A “major release” of its Beyond Digital strategy is expected to be released in mid-2024, along with a “refreshed” cloud strategy/policy. The next iteration of the NSW Cyber Security Strategy is also due out in early 2024, and there will be significant interest in the content and direction of all three documents. 

As expected, there has been substantial change in the state’s digital and technology operations through 2023. NSW lost both its digital champions, Minister Victor Dominello, and head of Service NSW Damon Rees, last year. 

A change of government in March 2023 led to the appointment of a new Minister for Customer Service and Digital Government, Jihad Dib. There’s also notably been a change of NSW Government Chief Information and Digital Officer, with Laura Christie moving into the role in December last year; her predecessor, Greg Wells, is now Service NSW’s CEO. 

There are also changes to available funding, with considerably less digital budget to work with than in prior years. The recent NSW Budget delivered $66 million to the state’s flagship Digital Restart Fund (DRF), which was set up in 2019 to incrementally fund digital programs of work across government. It was the first cash injection for the fund in over two years - the DRF received no extra money in 2022. The $66 million amount pales in comparison to the size of previous top-ups: $500 million in 2021 and $1.6 billion in 2020. 

Dib told iTnews the new DRF funding will be directed “towards digital initiatives aimed at addressing some of the government’s top priorities.” Some of the programs we have approved funding for include ‘Rural Access Gap’, which encompasses digital initiatives to address disadvantage and inequity for 210,000 students in remote, rural and regional schools; and a central NSW government site to help citizens interface with government. 

“We are also driving forward improvements to pioneering accessibility in the digital space,” Dib says. “Digital accessibility is about making sure our products and services are usable by all people. Inclusion relates to a person’s ability to access, afford and use digital technology.” 

The 2023 Budget also saw $80 million handed to Cyber Security NSW, which had earlier in the year been identified as underfunded.  

In addition, Service NSW received an additional $232.5 million through 2026-27 “to continue critical services and meet projected demand in coming years”. “Recent enhancements” to ServiceNSW operations “include the introduction of multi-factor authentication to MyServiceNSW Accounts to further modernise and secure customer information, and work on the NSW Digital ID program,” the government said. 

Inside the next major release of Beyond Digital 

Dib provided a view into some of the elements that may feature in its 2024 Beyond Digital strategy release. “Looking to the future, I have tasked Digital NSW to work towards some ambitious deliverables to continue to lift NSW’s [digital] maturity,” he says.  

“These include more core and common digital platforms, products and data that drive public sector efficiency and support a modern, efficient government; a single digital identity and verifiable credentials to protect personal information; [and] a better coordinated digital investment pipeline, driving transparency, efficiency and alignment to [the] government’s key priorities”.  

Other priorities are around “continuing to build a best practice, cyber-mature public sector”, “greater identity resilience for NSW customers, and empathetic support through ID Support NSW when there are data breaches”, improving accessibility of ICT and digital products that the government builds, and maintaining a “world-leading” AI framework.

Dib is unequivocal in his focus on accessibility and inclusion. “Digital products and services can be designed with accessibility and inclusion in mind, but when they are not, they disempower and exclude groups of users from engaging with government on an equal footing with other customers,” he says. “Customers with disability and customers from diverse backgrounds are most often excluded by inaccessible products and services.” 

“NSW is addressing digital inclusion through projects such as Accessibility NSW, a whole-of-government project team within the Department of Customer Service (DCS), which aims to ensure all NSW government digital and ICT products and services are accessible and usable for all customers and staff, regardless of their ability, situation or background. We are looking in more detail about how we can further this work and provide greater accessibility across NSW government.” 

Cloud policy refresh 

The NSW Government published its Public Cloud First policy in October 2020, requiring agencies to meet metrics by 2023 that included having 25 percent of workloads hosted in public

cloud. Agencies had either met or exceeded the baseline of 25 percent by June 2023. eHealth NSW is one of the agencies known to have exceeded the target, with “a bit over 30 percent” of its workloads in public cloud by the end of 2022. Remaining private cloud or on-premises workloads continue to be hosted in the NSW GovDC data centres. 

The cloud policy is set to be “refreshed” to coincide with the major release of the Beyond Digital strategy. What that will look like isn’t immediately clear, but the intent, according to the department, is to “look to build out opportunities to capitalise on technology maturity and innovation in [the] cloud to supplement the public cloud move.” Notably, the department raises both private and community clouds as potential supplementary options. 

Revising AI guidelines 

NSW published its first AI strategy and ethics policy back in 2020. It also developed and mandated  the use of an AI Assurance Framework - current as of March 2022 [pdf]  - to ensure NSW government services using AI meet best practice ethical requirements. “The framework tries to get at the principles in the strategy and the ethics policy down to the bits: what do you do when you’re sitting in front of a dataset [or] an algorithm? How do you ensure the combination of data, algorithm data and AI actually do what’s described in the principles of the ethics policy or in the strategy?” chief data scientist Dr Ian Oppermann told iTnews’ sister title Digital Nation. 

These efforts pre-date the current fervour around generative artificial intelligence, and the improved accessibility of large language models (LLMs) through interfaces such as ChatGPT. The NSW government indicated earlier this year it was rejigging its framework to cover the newer developments and directions of AI.  

“We’re going to produce a ‘version two’ of the AI Assurance Framework,” Dr Oppermann says. “We’re also looking to build it into a digital tool, so that you’ve got the ability to not only capture all of the information and the responses about how people are using AI and issues related to data and algorithms, but also really test that data - give advice about the data and its fitness and purpose, and test the data and the algorithm working together, and give guidance around appropriate use of the data product, whether that’s an insight, an alert, an alarm or a decision. Those things are underway right now and I’m hoping we have them by the end of calendar year 2023.” 

NSW DCS said version two would better “deal with new AI capabilities in the form of generative AI and large language models.” Some state departments such as Education have released their own ChatGPT-specific guidelines in the interim. 

Modelling national AI responses on NSW 

Importantly, the updated AI Assurance Framework could also be used to “underpin an updated nationally consistent approach to AI Assurance”, DCS says.  

Dib explains that NSW is “working closely with the Commonwealth and state and territory governments through the Data and Digital Minister's Meeting (DDMM) and related groups to adopt a nationally consistent approach to AI Assurance, with the NSW AI Assurance Framework forming the basis of this piece of work.” 

“As part of this forum, DCS works closely with the Digital Transformation Agency and the Department of Industry Science and Resources (DISR) at the federal level alongside state and territory governments to develop consistent AI standards and frameworks. This work to develop a national AI baseline will be critical in charting a path that allows the use of AI to continue and grow while ensuring relevant guardrails and protections are in place, and trust is maintained. 

“Given the fluid and ever-changing nature of generative AI, governments must be proactive and well-considered when developing guidance – it cannot be set-and-forget, nor can it be too prescriptive or too general – a balance must be struck.” 

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