DTO becomes DTA

Changes to the digital agenda

On 14 October the Federal Government announced a big shake up to the government’s digital agenda. Assistant Minister for Digital Transformation Angus Taylor announced the changes at an industry briefing hosted by the Australian Information Industry Association (AIIA). The setting was interesting (in a very good way!) — clearly an indication of the government’s intention to work with industry to shape and implement the government’s digital agenda.

The biggest change is around the expansion and renaming of the DTO. The DTO will now be known as the DTA, and its larger focus will see it take over IT policy and procurement from the Department of Finance (DoF). In addition, a new program management office will monitor IT projects from within the DTA.

Current DTO CEO Paul Shelter will become the Chief Digital Officer of the new group, which will be led for the first six months by Department of Communications deputy secretary Nerida O’Loughlin. The DTA will also be supported by an advisory board comprised of members from both the public and private sectors.

It will be interesting to see the DTA in action over the coming months. Here at Salsa Digital we’ve been working with both the DTO (for example we recently secured a place on the new Digital Marketplace panel) and the DoF (specifically through our govCMS expertise and projects. We’re looking forward to moving forward with the DTA.

The DoF has done some great work putting open source policy into action with the adoption of govCMS and we expect the centralisation of all things digital into the new DTA will ensure digital transformation in government continues to grow. The fact that the DTA will draw on expertise from both the public and private sectors within the IT industry is a great indication of things to come.

Watch this space…we will be!