NSW targets trade licence renewals for digitisation

Trade licenses are set to be targeted for digitisation by the NSW government, with minister for government services and digital government Victor Dominello showing that high-risk work license renewal processes are on his radar.

More than 63,000 high-risk work licence renewals are processed each year, currently via a time-consuming paper process.

“To renew a high-risk work licence, you need to print out and complete a paper renewal at Australia Post," Dominello wrote in a social post.

As well as filling in the forms, the applicant needs a new photo for each renewal.

Digitising the process, Dominello wrote, would be “a better, faster and cheaper customer experience”.

“Online renewals could reduce the average time taken to renew an application by around 90 minutes - that is 477,000 minutes per month and over 5.7 million minutes per year back given back to customers.”

Service NSW has provided a template for digitisation all the way to the federal level, and has maintained a fast release pace. 

In the four months since Dominello said he will retire from politics, he has announced multifactor authentication for the Service NSW app, a decentralised digital ID pilot, and a plan to cut real estate data collection.