Interview: How AGIMO will implement Gov 2.0

The Federal Government claims to have completed 90 percent of tasks that arose from the 2008 Gershon review and is now readying itself for a new, Web 2.0 culture.

Last week, the Government accepted most recommendations of the Government 2.0 Taskforce Report, agreeing to address copyright issues, establish Web 2.0 guidelines for agencies, and make a declaration of open government within "months".

iTnews spoke with Ann Steward, chief information officer of the Australian Government Information Management Office (AGIMO), about plans to establish a more open, transparent government.

iTnews: What will be the biggest change to come from the Gov 2.0 approach (pdf)?

Steward: I think it will be around the cultural response we have as a Government. In particular, the way in which we're able to have greater levels of engagement with the public.

That interaction is particularly important, and helps us be better informed as we develop our policies or pull together our service delivery offerings.

How will Gov 2.0 activities be governed? How would a whole-of-government Web 2.0 policy differ from that of a corporation?

Steward: If they [companies] deployed new technologies or Web 2.0 activities or social media, they would no doubt have codes of practice for how they want their company to be seen in their sector, and to ensure that they give guidance to staff in how they use social media so that they don't release information that is commercially disadvantageous.

That's fairly similar to government, where we have our Australian Public Service (APS) Code [of Conduct] are employed under the Public Service Act. We also have a great deal of information that we hold on behalf of citizens and need to maintain highest levels of confidentiality and privacy and security for all of that. And then we have other data and information that goes to national security issues.

How will you "encourage public servants to engage online", as per taskforce recommendations?

That will be a matter for each of the individual agencies, taking into account their own programs, areas and focus of attention. Existing guidance that the APS issued last November provides them with a starting point.

We [the Department of Finance] have deployed Facebook and Twitter for our own staff so they can be familiar with these tools and understand how they can be applied in our own workforce to help what we do.

We've provided guidance to our staff to help them understand how they should go about that, consulting with their managers to ensure that they are adhering to the broader APS guidelines and preserving all of the appropriate confidentiality of data that the Department holds on behalf of the Government as well.

Would Gov 2.0 have an impact on the digital divide?

Web 2.0 is complementary to existing channels -- it does not replace them at all. Again, this will be something that each individual department and agency will examine as part of their service delivery arrangement.

I think in fact, it [Web 2.0] will do more to bridge it [the digital divide] and to ensure that there are a variety of ways in which information and input can be provided from citizens to Government.

Read on to page two for AGIMO's plans for moderation and copyright.

Will Gov 2.0 media be moderated? How?

We [the Department of Finance] apply a best practice approach in terms of how we manage our blog. We do post-moderation ... it's like a rotating responsibility, not a full-time moderator, to actively look at this throughout our working day.

We are very careful to ensure that if there are any offensive or other inappropriate comments, they are removed from the environment. If there are areas where there does need to be editing, that that's transparently undertaken as well. We found that to be a much better way of actually managing that than trying to vet things in advance.

We also have an automated spam filter in place.

Will any agencies use automated tools to control or filter what their staff say on social media?

We certainly do look at what tools are about and if there are any of those that we feel are appropriate to actually bring into our environment, we would act on that. We keep that under active consideration.

Can you tell us about the Gov 2.0 approach to copyright and public sector information (PSI)?

We have already taken steps towards a more open form of copyright advocated by the taskforce. For example, we put in place creative common licenses on the taskforce work itself, the AGIMO blog, the australia.gov.au website and some of our documents. We expect the use of open licensing by Finance and other agencies to continue.

The Department of the Attorney General has policy responsibility for that and will be working with us as they take forward implementations arising from the Gov 2.0 response. The Office of the Information Commissioner bill will establish a Commissioner who also has responsibility of taking forward some of the PSI work; that was also set out in the Government's response.

Why isn't all public sector information licensed under Creative Commons by default?

It may not be appropriate -- there may be particular areas where the Government may not be the owner of copyright, or there may be conditions that apply to the data. We may have had data provided to Government that has come from another source. We need to be able to understand the obligations that we have for that. One of the recommendations is that individual agencies need to go and examine what their data is that is appropriate for that [Creative Commons licensing].

iTnews: Can you tell us about the Gov 2.0 timeline?

There are a range of milestones from now to the rest of this year, and then there are some [projects] that will be cyclical, others that will be ongoing. Some of that [work] commences now with work my team is doing with the AGIMO blog.

The steering committee has been established and we aim to have that operating from next month. There are various dates again in terms of other guidance material that we will be working with the APS commission and lead agencies to produce.

Agencies will be looking at what they're going to be doing, particularly in either identifying barriers or identifying or documenting specific projects where they're going to make use of social media. They've [got] until May 2011 to do that.

The APS commission is incorporating a Gov 2.0 progress report in the State of the Service report that will occur in 2010-11 so we will see that towards the end of next year.

How is the Government progressing with its responses to recommendations in the Gershon review?

The Gershon review has been well undertaken; we are more than 90 percent the way through there. There were some 42 projects; 37 or so are already done and the remainder are underway, either to be completed by the end of this year, or there is a tail program where the projects continue on to 2011.

There's a lot that already has been delivered; not just the billion dollar efficiency savings that has been realised and banked - half of which has been released to agencies to be bid for in a reinvestment fund.

Last month, there was the launching of the ICT workforce plan and careers framework as well a datacentre strategy endorsed by the Government ... We've had some really good responses on the AGIMO blog, and we encourage people to keep engaging with us there.