Partners in Technology (PiT) – 6 October 2023

thank you for joining us for our partners in technology briefing today uh my name is Darren Bond I work in the customer and digital group uh and today we've got three wonderful speakers to keep you engaged for the morning uh and we'll have the opportunity to ask questions let me Begin by acknowledging the traditional owners of the land on which we meet pay my respect Elders past present and emerging of course this is the yger and table people's lands and we pay acknowledgement to those traditional owners bit of housekeeping so exits here uh and here but maybe use that one if you can uh we go to an emergency location uh toor uh the rear of the auditorium uh the assembly area is in the grass area in front of the Queensland art gallery so I think just out that way where you had coffee bathrooms located directly across the hallway as you exit the auditorium so just straight across that way so [Music] um we do have people on live stream this morning so welcome to those people uh you will have the opportunity to ask questions I ask if you can just keep those questions to the end of The Forum uh we'll have the the speakers up on stage and you'll have the opportunity to ask questions or any question you'd like to ask at all so we should uh finish the presentations around 9:30 or so and then the opportunity to go out on the Terrace uh for tea and coffee and a bit of networking uh apologies to those online who can't join us um before I introduce our first Speaker I'd just like to highlight a couple of really exciting and I'd say lifechanging pieces of work that are going on at the moment and uh the first one is around our first Nations digital service centers and this is where we've been establishing real businesses in First Nations communities to deliver commercial sustainable services from those communities to organizations and to government so we've already established two sites in Sher one in sherberg and one just starting up in Palm Island our foundation clients have been Fujitsu uh DB results and telra so thank you to those organizations but I just want to give a plug to say if you're interested please contact me we can have a chat I can take you through it no commitment to start with uh but if you are interested that would be great because we want to expand this to other communities across Queensland to help close that Gap with our first Nations communities and colleagues the second also related to First Nations is our first Nations digital careers program so so this is in partnership with Microsoft I did see them I don't know where they are at the moment uh but thank you to Microsoft for partnering with us on this uh initiative and this is where uh First Nations people apply for a uh an opportunity to go through a training component and then placement in a real job okay uh not necessarily in their Community but uh anywhere across Queensland and if you'd like to be part of that program and be a maybe a host employer um there was a QR code and I'll refer to it again at the end I'll give it another plug of course um so there's a QR code at the registration desk that you'll be able to use so those two uh initiatives lifechanging for those people closing the Gap working on um making sure that our first Nations communities get the opportunity to participate in the digital economy let me move on to our first presentation so first of all I've got Tim dun so Tim's the CIO uh within the department of energy and Public Works he's been working that in that department uh as the CIO for 13 or so years uh but ac across the public sector for 40 years uh so very very experienced and very skilled at delivering digital services within Queensland government so he's been working on a number of successful programs over those years um Erp Replacements uh mobile app development seen a lot of Reform I'd say he probably gone from Green Screen to what we have now uh so uh Tim's going to talk to us today about a bit around what's happening about rebuilding CU build so he has a a particular initiative uh build to enable a project that is supporting that uh Reformation of qill within Queensland government so can you please welcome [Applause] Tim thank you thank you Darren thanks for that very kind uh introduction there um let me add my uh welcome to you all this morning thank you very much for taking time out of your uh busy Friday it's a lovely day out there uh so um great that you've made the time to either join us in person or online so um the department of energy and Public Works um as outlined in our strategic plan we have set ourselves a vision to generate and build a sustainable future for all queenslanders we set for ourselves our purpose is to power build by together for Queensland that might sound all a little bit uh a bit Naf but uh when you understand that our department is simply structured into four simple divisions the energy division the hydrogen division which tends to cover off the power element Public Works which is all about building the procurement division for government which is all about buying and our corporate and portfolio strategy division which brings together our department so we're a department of uh about 25,000 staff and through CU build we find ourselves uh in about 60 65 locations throughout the state so let me tell you a little bit about CU build Cub build is a what we call a business entity within the Public Works division it plays a vital role in queensland's $45 billion building and construction industry cubil partners with other government departments and agencies those that own building assets and it partners with them to strategically manage those building assets this enables agencies to focus on their Frontline Service delivery responsibilities and commitments to queenslanders now as Darren indicated cuild are presently embarking on what's been labeled as rebuild CU build and so the government of the day has recognized that there is this amazing opportunity to grow CU build and the services that CU build provides particularly in the regional remote areas of Queensland um it's in the public media the challenges around housing and social housing and that flows across a whole range of building and building asset challenges so re build CU build is taking a critical look at the way that CU build delivers its services it's looking to grow the workforce of Cub build currently sitting at about 1,800 and for this financial year slated to grow to 2,000 and then in the financial years Beyond it's also intended to grow beyond that with a particular focus on field force staff trade staff and in particular a es in Regional areas you may have noticed there's been quite a push in the social media advertising in relation to the work that cuild is undertaking now cuild delivers services all over the state and has a presence in many of the state's Regional and remote communities such as charville long Rich Mornington Island Palm Island Thursday Island uh Cub build is just about everywhere across the state our current state in terms of the technology is uh the solution that many of you would be aware of the old Queensland company mincom their product ellipse so ellipse is the underpinning technology Solution that's used by cubil for the delivery of their Asset Management Services our implementation of ellipse originally went live in November of 200 9 almost 14 years ago the project to implement ellipse actually commenced late 2006 most of you will remember the iPhone was released in June 2007 so we started the project late 2006 it's it's not a stretch to realize that most of our business practices and processes that have been embedded into our solution certainly makes no reference to the use of a phone a mobile phone many of our processes are bound by manual requirements obviously there's a whole plethora of spreadsheets that come into play thanks Microsoft uh that run the universe and help run the organization so the way that we deliver services today is vastly different than how the services were delivered in the mid 2000s um so this is a real challenge for the organization and particularly as it is taking this critical look at itself and looking to really modernize the organization and move into a more Contemporary Service delivery model our ability to do an upgrade is really quite limited for a number of reasons one of which is originally when the implementation was done at the time the inherent assumption behind ellips is the reason you want to know all about these assets is because you own them don't you and of course cubil doesn't own the social housing the schools the cour houses the prisons the government employee housing it doesn't own those assets it does all of the maintenance work they're an a corporate entity they're a business they need to uh be able to issue an invoice for the work that was done and ellipse out of the box originally core functionality had did not cater for that and that was a custom build element that functionality has fingers out to our implementation of ellipse which means any further upgrade is effectively a reimplementation of ellipse and that's been a real challenge for us since implementation so we've uh to address the the process and the technology uplift phase of rebuild cuu we've established the bill to enable program and we've set for ourselves these four key strategic drivers we need to make sure that we address the business risk we need to make sure that we address what's coming from the rebuild cubil strategic direction we want to make sure that we Implement more contemporary systems that are going to enable better service delivery and better customer relationships and we want to simplify our processes build more efficient consistent processes across the state and make sure that those processes are aligned to our customer needs and we're going to deliver this program following these four simple strategic principles our design needs to be mobile and responsive we need to make sure that we bring our people along on the journey we want to Source what is for us the best available ecosystem of solutions we don't believe there is a single monolithic if you like solution that satisfies the unique nature of what CU will do so we want to Source an ecosystem of those Solutions and we want to make sure that our implementation approach mitigates risk along the way simplifies those process um and and results in a fit forp purpose outcome so our simple focusing question is how do we drisk simplify and transform our work processes and the underpinning system solutions to uplift Cub's capability now and into the future with minimal impacts to business operations right now we're moving through what we've determined as the right work phase we're building out a very detailed business case that is informed from a request for information that we put to the market back in July and thank you very much to those organizations that responded to that RFI the information that we've got from that RFI has been very beneficial for us to build out this detailed business case that is ultimately um our bid for securing funding for us to move forward with the bill to enable program a major part of this phase that we're working on is to Define and refine those services to review and document at a high level what those requirements actually are and of course those requirements will then help build out the invitation to offer when we have the opportunity to go to market some key points that we continue to focus with our project team are there on the screen these are the key points that keep our current project team very focused on what it is we're trying to achieve we've already run through now and run a whole series of workshops that's built out um a service design for all of the services that cuu offers we've brought people in from Regional locations one of the challenges that cuild face is the way that services are delivered in Thursday isand is quite different than the way services are delivered in southeast Queensland some of that is by necessity and some of that is by human nature we're looking to try and standardize on those wherever we possibly can we're trying to make sure that as we consider those processes we don't make the mistake of what how do we do this process we do it this way because that's how ellipse works that is not how we want to do the process going forward we want to focus on what do our clients need um and what's considered to be industry best practice we've established what I believe is quite a mature project team in terms of their experience and the sophisticated approach that they're bringing towards this project we're operating on very much agile principles daily standups a whole series of tasks that have been identified um going through and and ticking off literally those tasks in a Microsoft planner type phase we're very much powering through this phase remaining focused on those strategic business drivers addressing the blockers along the way and sticking to our tight schedule as I say we've established for ourselves certain phases along this project and right now we're in the right work phase as we move through to identify exactly what is it that we're looking for from a solution we we intend we're hoping to secure the funding that will allow us to move into the right solution phase approach you the market to identify those solutions that best suit us secure those Solutions and move into the right implementation phase trying to keep it simp simple whilst at the same time addressing all the requirements for that for the business four major work streams um Capital at the highest level Planning and Building activity that results in new build work maintenance work maintenance and Urgent Response work there's a finance component to this now I want to be clear Our intention is to use the Hall of government existing sap solution wherever we possibly can and clearly from a general ledger perspective that's a no-brainer the challenge becomes when you're commercialized business unit doing maintenance activity we need to invoice for that work so we need to track and capture the work effort that's gone so that we can issue an invoice for that work that's been undertaken so that's the finance component that is a bit special and is a bit unique that's required the Shar Services bit don't get confused we're not talking Queensland shared services there as you can read There are some activities that tend to go across the major Works around capital and maintenance activity estimation procurement program planning and intake triage workplace health and safety which we are already addressing through implementing what's considered to be the Hall of government solution and the same will be from a procurement perspective we've developed a a a fairly sophisticated program view that we intend to apply as we move through to our implementation phase um we want to have multiple project teams with process owners taking responsibility for the delivery of this our current solution has come to end of life so we're looking to try and move through as quickly as we can although we recognize that a business change initiative of this scale is going to take some time so the opportunity for the market will be once we've secured our funding we'll be going to Market seeking offers from suitably qualified organizations that can partner with us to deliver what I think is a really exciting opportunity to modernize the work practices and the technology that underpins cubil Service delivery across the state of Queensland thank you thank [Applause] you thanks Tim sounds like a huge undertaking uh and I'm sure there'll be some challenges there it's good with uh with me in the room that you mentioned h of government systems a few times so much appreciated so thanks thanks for that um so yeah uh that that's obviously one project of many that uh that Tim's working on at the moment um you know supporting over five agencies uh Tim has a very busy portfolio of activities I'm sure um that he'd be more than happy to talk to you about okay uh we'll move on to the second speaker now so uh Ashley Hill Ashley is the CIO within the Department of Justice and attorney general um I've got an interesting background on Ashley he's uh he's been in the department for over 30 years and it says he rose from from the stationary cabinet to CIO so uh again that might be something good to chat to him about over over coffee but obviously uh over all those years in that department uh brings a a great depth of organizational knowledge uh and understanding some of the cultural aspects of uh a really complex organization I can only imagine how complex it would be dealing with uh courts and judges and I'm sure that's something that he juggles every day now DJs adopted uh an IT strategy um that even though it's a complex organization is defined by its Simplicity uh and I'm sure we've seen strategies that are overly complex but become sort of door stops uh this one is in its beauty uh is is simple so realization of that strategy depends on a combination of uh a number of contemporary Solutions supported by uh different capabilities that Ashley will be standing up so can I introduce Ashley Hill [Applause] please thanks Darren good morning everybody thank you for coming along uh I'll start off by just saying Tim I'm very jealous um I'm jealous of the Simplicity of your organization and I'm jealous of the snazzy presentation uh in the Department of Justice we've got lots of lawyers and so we love Cora 10 and lots of it uh so uh you'll forgive me if my presentation is a little bit lackluster um the uh when you think of Justice you probably think of uh people with bad hair and capes wheeling in piles of paper into cour houses uh and while that's true the Department of Justice is actually so much more than that uh and so my presentation today will give an overview of our department um describe our ICT strategy that Darren just touched on uh talk about the journey so far on the implementation of our strategy and then touch on the opportunities for the industry okay so what is DJ um uh the answer is diverse um the biggest part of our department are the courts and tribunals um the law is a very complex thing uh and we as a result have a complex set of jurisdictions to look after that uh at the top we have the court of appeal that we have the Supreme Court we have the district court we have the magistrates Court um and we have the coroners court and the land Court uh and all of those courts sit in over 100 different locations around the state from uh cool and G to sa Island which is 12 km off the coast of PNG uh and we sit in the cour houses that Tim looks after for us uh we also have um in addition to the courts we have tribunals and in a few years ago they were all Consolidated into the Queensland civil and administrative tribunal uh that's designed to create more accessible uh dispute resolution uh for you know low value low complexity um disputes uh and then finally we have a dispute resolution function which is intended to try and keep everyone out of that entire system pick up the phone talk to your neighbor sort out the tree it's all good so the uh next major part of the department that we have is licensing and regulation not very similar to quarts uh uh the uh licensing function uh itself is very complicated uh we license uh Liquor security providers all sorts of things all the way from cafes to casinos across the state uh and we also have a major gaming regulator regulatory function uh that's the local bows Club up to Queens Warf so there is an enormous breadth of um uh organizations that we touch uh we have Fair trading as a function uh they're the the guys who make sure that the show bags are safe and don't have button batteries in them uh can't comment on the valume of a show bag but uh you know that's what one of the things they do they deal with thousands of complaints every year from people who feel that they've been hard done by and they solve all of those things really important uh for the for the consumer who feels they've been um ripped off managing things like lemon laws and such um and the other regulatory function we have is a blue card which a lot of you will be familiar with many of you will have a blue card there are 900,000 blue card holders in the state and we renew 180,000 blue cards every year um in fact we did an upgrade to the blue card system uh a year or so ago and it was a about a 3-e process to get a blue card if things went well uh we digitized the system and now it takes about 20 minutes so we're pretty pleased about that as are the consumers okay what else do we do uh we also have two of the largest law firms in the state as a part of our organization uh one is Crown Law which does civil work uh and the other one is the office of the director of public prosecutions who does all the criminal work uh for the community uh each of those organizations is about 400 people so pretty large Law Firm pretty complicated um we have the office of the public Guardian the role of the office of the public Guardian is to um uh look after people with impaired decision-making uh capability that could be someone who's in an Ager Care Home who has no family could be a child in uh Youth detention um could be any number of situations so that's a really important function for the most vulnerable people in our society uh we also have uh the office of women safety and violence prevention uh this is a very small team trying to tackle a very Wicked problem which is domestic and Family Violence uh and uh a key part of uh the function of that uh team is to partner with non-government organizations uh and to distribute funds to help uh deliver the services closest to where they needed uh then we have uh in the in the interests of not boring you to death I just grouped a whole bunch together of the other units we have we have uh the registry of birth test and marriages we have have victims Assist Queensland the commissioner for body corporate and Community Management if any of you live in a unit you'll know who they are uh we have the justice of the peace branch and the list this goes on and on um very complicated very diverse business uh we have the largest statute book in Queensland uh most agencies uh have about half a dozen a dozen uh pieces of legislation that might inform what they do DJ is responsible for over 250 acts uh that's a a monster uh and uh for our sins we have also been uh uh gifted forensic Services Queensland you might have seen that in the news recently um uh that will be coming to djag from one July next year uh and we'll be looking after scientists and forensic analysis because you know that fits into DJ really well okay so our ICT strategy um as Darren said uh our I think our strategy is beautiful uh because it is simple if we were to develop a strategy that tried to meet the needs of all of those people many of whom I haven't touched didn't mention uh our strategy truly would be a door stop and it would be impossible so uh we said that what is it that we need to do in the Department of Justice to try and uh meet the needs of the organization and we focused on uh getting the basics right uh let's focus on getting uh portals let's focus on good content management let's get good information security uh let's have you know some simple case management capability and the the think the theory being that a rising tide will lift all boats uh rather than saying you know the most important organ you know team can get um all of the budget so uh as as you can see on the screen um common capabilities uh based on mainstream technology I'm a big fan of staying in the mainstream because we've got such a huge uh ICT debt from uh trying to buy Best of breed in the past uh and then we reuse those Technologies um for uh any application that we can across the organization there's a link there um and uh feel free to have a look at the strategy um and you'll probably come to the conclusion that it's it's really it's it 101 consolidate um on proven Technologies and reuse the sort of thing we were doing 30 something years ago um and a byproduct of that housekeeping is that we will be introducing uh new contemporary Technologies and then our very diverse business units can apply that in their unique context so I'm not going to try and tell them how to best use their technology I'm going to give them a rich toolkit and uh watch them go off and be fantastic with it okay so how did we Implement that strategy uh we were fortunate enough to get some funding to establish a foundation um of our ICT strategy uh in 2018 it took us four years to implent we thought of course it would take uh less time but you know a little thing called coid got in the way um and we had excuse me $44 million and the objective from ISP stage one was to procure a platform that could meet our diverse needs um prepare ourselves as an organization to be able to implement it and then prove that platform by Rolling it out in a couple of complex use cases to address some particularly painful Legacy problems that we had uh we went through a very extensive procurement process we ended up selecting more roft Dynamics and the Power Platform as our tool set for the future uh we engaged our delivery Partners um and then in the middle of Co we pivoted um and built the home quarantine solution uh some of you may have even used that solution so instead of going to Hotel quarantine you're able to quarantine at home um again right up our alley um but you know we're pretty flexible um and then we proved our new technology uh Solution by rolling out our new new solution called Q Jura uh some of you will have uh done jury service probably in the last 18 months uh and you may have been invited to complete your jury questionnaire online um and you will have received SMS alerts around when you're required uh after you've done jury service you get paid through eft the sort of thing that you just expect to do um but before we could roll this solution out we uh were you writing people letters writing out checks at the end of it um requiring people to ring up and uh every night to find out whether they required for jury service so it was truly an archaic process and we've really leapfrogged in terms of what we could do with what is today considered some pretty basic technology then second proof uh was we built a um civil case management system called qase that is uh electronic file management in our courts from Cradle to grave uh no longer will you see those caped Warriors Wheeling uh trolley full of paper into cour houses when this thing is rolled out because everything will be electronic uh which is fantastic really looking forward to that maybe we can have less cour houses after we do that um we've currently rolled that out to qap um our kpi for uptake uh in the first year was uh 50% of people lodging electronically um and we hit that within four weeks uh so people are very keen on using the solution um and we'll be rolling out to magistrates courts in the near future there's a couple of uh procurement lessons uh that we learned from stage one um and now as much as we all love procurement you can have too much of a good thing um and so uh one of the lessons that we've taken out of ISP stage one is that we must leverage standing offers and H of government Arrangements whenever we can uh we engage our contingent labor through the resource manager um and uh time and materials arrangements are much better than fixed price particularly when you're trying to implement in an AG methodology hard one lessons Okay IP stage two um I've only got a few minutes left so I'll skip through this fa quickly sorry about that um we are in the midst of or we've just started I should say $126 million program we have our funding sorry Tim uh and uh we're on the way we are going to do we've got four major programs that we're implementing the first one is to digitize courts and tribunals that's a big undertaking um as as we said at the very opening slide there's multiple courts different jurisdictions 100 different locations it's a it's a it's a big gig that one uh to have a digital Criminal Court you must have a digital director of public prosecutions they're in every single criminal trial just about uh so they've got to be digital too so we're digitizing the DPP uh the third activity we're doing is we're consolidating uh some old Legacy systems in the division of liquor gaming and fair trading uh those guys who regulate the cafes to casinos um and delivering a lot of our services online uh a lot of people a lot of small businesses um uh have got a lot of uh paperwork to do and a lot of arch process to follow uh we're trying to digitize all of that and make that a much better experience for um for that stakeholder group uh and the last one is what we're calling the digital enablement program it's building common Technologies uh updating some Legacy across the organization but also those technologies that those uh three programs above will need they're all going to need contemporary content Services management for example uh they're all going to need uh some form of unified uh collaboration to engage with their stakeholder groups um data and analytics they're going to be using identity U to transact with their people online so we're doing all of those common uh Technologies in in a program uh run separately to the other three um and we'll be leveraging all of those things that we built in stage one okay the good bit um opportunities we have some um processes that are in flight at the moment or those things that are established from uh ISP stage one our technology is set we know what we're doing uh we're uh clearly in the Microsoft stack uh we're not a huge organization um and uh we are very very lean in the terms of our ICT support uh so we've got to standardize ICT 101 uh on one technology platform so we can adequately support it um uh we partner with uh Professional Service organizations because again being so lean uh we have um a very thin team and we have to rely on our um Partners to assist us uh with the expertise and sometimes the capacity where we don't have it uh there are two um uh processes out in the Market at the moment one's for architecture and design advisory and the other one is um for uh what I call Microsoft stack support So te more technical uh those processes are in flight at the moment and we hope that they'll be concluded um this calendar year so uh other things that are coming up um we will be leveraging um more Professional Services we uh will look to have um uh more St will leave uh sorry leverage existing standing offers or where they don't exist will look to stand them up uh because we have a 4-year program it might even run longer and we certainly want to continue to access those Services after the end of the program and uh so we'll be uh looking to form strong Partnerships with uh very capable suppliers uh who will be with us for the long time uh for the long term I should say and the sorts of things we're going to be looking for during the life of the program a project and program Assurance uh testing services that'll probably endure beyond the end of the program as well uh isms Assurance uh penetration testing um and we're considering um data and analytics as a service uh we have some Nathan you want to sell me some Services Nathan um uh we have um uh high demand from our internal customer group for business intelligence um and uh we're looking to uh we don't have that capability internally so we'll be probably partnering with a um specialist provider to help us with that um and another a potential opportunity that might come unfold I can't be certain because those programs are not quite at that point where they determined how they're going to uh Implement is that um we might be approaching the market for an in integrator to help take all of our existing Technologies and Architectural patterns and turn them into business outcomes um and I'll leave it there thank you well thank you Ashley your uh the presentation quality was made up by the delivery so uh well done very entertaining what a complex organization uh I've worked in government for a while and uh you know you learn something new every day about the complexity of uh of organizations uh and the amazing things that they do every day Ashley I can probably see you down in the CSI lab uh as that comes into the department I'm sure you'll have fun down there um can I just highlight one important point that came out of Ashley's pres or there were many but one one point I'd like to make and that's the way that the CI are now working together so as an exci I'm sort of heartened to see how closely that CIO group across government is now working together to benefit from each other to join up services to understand how each impacts the other as we go forward so um thanks for highlighting that Ashley our final speaker today oh and asley promised me he'd stick to time but he didn't so uh we might be a little little little fast here Nathan so Nathan bindes is our final speaker um Nathan works with me in the Queensland government customer and digital group he looks after data and information Services they're doing some amazing amazing things so I won't spend long describing uh what they're doing because Nathan will uh impress you I'm sure uh he's a very experienced dat analyst uh working in the space for many years and he's leading the H of government position from a a data and analytics perspective uh the incredible work that they're currently doing in AI um blows me away every day uh and I'm sure Nathan will touch on that for us this morning so if you can welcome Nathan [Applause] bow realized I didn't send through a bio and then I realized Darren was MC and I thought this could be anything but thank you so um yeah probably just a little bit of context um I I sit in the customer digital group and responsible for all things data and AI now so from policy and strategy through to delivery we also have a a sort of internal to Government consultancy Model where we provide analytics Services out the department s Ashley's comment um as well as shared platforms I thought we'd start with uh a bit of context setting um I think we've all been through the the the journey and he heard both sides of the conversation around what's AI mean for us as Society we had Jeffrey hon come out of Google and talk about you know the fact that we need to we need to pause we've had I think strategically some vendors coming out and saying everyone else needs to pause or we need to be regulated because only the big guys can handle that at the moment um there's also talk around the impact on people Universal basic income you know there's a reason why people out of silic conle have been talking about this technology and its relation to inter um Universal based income is because they can see the the future impacts of this discussing around you know the productivity Revolution what are the realistic impacts because there's there's a whole heap of things on each side of the scale there's people saying it's Doom and Gloom and we need to stop there's people saying it's going to revolutionize our economy and the way we work some interesting research has come out um to put in context of what it means for Australia McKenzie said that you know internationally 2.6 to 4.4 trilon it's quite a large scale but to the to the global economy the Microsoft and the TCH Council of Australia which is one I found interesting they talk about up to 5% of GDP for Australia to put that into context for yourself the mining boom was estimated about 4 to 5% so if that's true we're we are talking about something that's going to have a large impact on the Australian economy there's been labor market impacts already I'm sure we've all heard about Labor the uh Hollywood Riders and active strikes the federal government has already um made a position where policy will first and foremost protect workers it's something we need to think about I personally and we'll probably get to that as we discuss I think we're in a position now where we've got a shortage of Labor we've got an unmet demand for government Service delivery so it's a perfect time to be able to bring this technology in it's not about replacing jobs it's allowing us to service people more people in a better way in a more efficient and effective way you can't have a presentation without a good meme I may not have the flashy slides but thought this one was pretty funny um the point of that is it's actually impacting a large broad section of society that maybe others hadn't thought about in the past so what are we doing um I guess the key message for us is in customer and digital group and government more broadly we're embracing the opportunity to leverage this technology for better Public Services the conversation early on and very much and some places still is very much around the risk what is the risk of implementing this technology it's kind of moving to well how can we actually use Excuse me these tools and Technologies to deliver better services and better outcomes and that's our role um around the policy the strategy the guard rails to lean into agencies and help them through support and Leadership to embrace the technology and from there the real question I think that we're all getting to after we go through the pox and we start to understand how this technology works is well what do we want from AI as government and I'm sure every organization is asking the same questions how do we measure are we getting value and obviously that really talks to an AI strategy which is definitely on the road map for us over the next 12 months we're providing appropriate guard rails so obviously a role our role is to make sure that we're applying this technology in a safe and ethical way I'm really Keen to make sure though that the guard rails are broad we're able to Foster Innovation the fact is these tools are available to every person out there now we're talking about generative AI obviously llms we want to be able to engage business areas and have them interact with these tools that's where the Innovation comes from to do that we've been working on some approved tools for government that have some appropriate guardrails in place we've worked on appropriate policy responses so we'll talk to that in more detail in a minute but we have the um generative AI guidelines that have been published publicly for public servants on how to use some of these tools that's a first step and then to allow them to innovate we're actually setting up an innovation experimentation environment as I mentioned it's generative AI has really democratized access to tools there's a lot of people out there with great ideas and in the past they might not have had the technical expertise to implement their ideas the great thing about generative AI is people can then that that that Gap is bridged I threaten my staff that I might go back to cut and code one day soon um haven't done it for years is but these tools are allowing people to take their ideas and turn them into something with the help of Technology we want to make sure we target our investment appropriately we want to make sure that government is investing where we can provide value for public servant and for for the economy and we want to set up a core platform centrally to allow departments to share some of the core services that we're going to build share some of the um um safety as a service and some of the the guard that we're able to implement across government so that other agencies can leverage that that's just a plug for the the guidelines and the information sheet it's available online if you just Google gener generative Ai and queens and government you'll be able to access that on the forg page that's our first step I guess in the policy space there's a bit of a rough guide and you know apologies it's not a flashy presentation either but um on what we're doing now next and later so the guidance and advice has been released similar to other States Most states are doing something similar around getting something out there early to advise agencies on and and public servants on how to use these tools I think the key there is it's not a message around no don't use them that's never been our our position there's an appropriate use of public tools potentially for non government information for your own benefit there's tools that are you're going to be able to use where you can upload sensitive government information and that's really where there some value next in the policy space is working on an AI Assurance framework so many of you may know that New South Wales has an AI Assurance framework that they published a couple years ago um there's an acknowledgement that that needs to be Revisited with the the rise of generative AI being ubiquitous across tools platforms businesses the approach there needs to be Revisited so we're working on a national AI working group with all the states in the Commonwealth to I guess produce version two of that framework and the intent is that all states will have an aligned assurance process um for for AI following on from that obviously Queensland doesn't have a published AI strategy I think it's it's almost an an opportunity that we have that other states don't is that they're all going and revisiting their AI strategy right now because of the the rapid advancement so we're in a Greenfield state but obviously it's something that's important for Queensland on the technology stream we've actually stood up an internal government GPT I think we call it q q chat at the moment um not the most imaginative but it describes what it does so it's a private obviously based on the um open AI Microsoft service for now but we're building a front end that will should be technology agnostic and the idea is that public servants can access these tools starting with just the chat interface it's secure it's logged we have single sign on for government we can understand usage we can report on it no data is traveling outside of our environment um so they can upload briefing notes and those sort of things so we've got that in a private pre preview with a few departments now the intent over time is to roll that out but the key underneath that is an integration platform to for to allow us to provide some of those core common services to agencies so we're building doing some experimentation right now on a range of proof of Concepts SL Pilots with agencies to understand where best to invest our time how this technology might be applied I think we've all got some ideas and a lot of the ideas coming out of businesses are very similar there's Knowledge Management there's generating content summarizing there's you know scripting we need to test and learn essentially we know there's products coming on all of the vendors road maps we need to make sure that we understand where we can play a role and to that point probably moving on to the second slide already so yeah we've got that qchat service up we're building the AI platform in the background we are partnering with industry and vendors on on some of that we do want to build a core group of people that can manage these Services internal to government we've got some work around safety as a service that we're looking to we're planning to embed cont government context and safety and system prompts behind some of the tools that everyone can use so an agency can come and plug into our platform and consume some of that that safety and um performance and the rest of it all tuned into the back end and I guess you know what you guys here is to understand how you can work with government what are we doing um we're setting up an oversight committee there's an AI Insurance process and that committee I should say is likely to involve government Academia and Industry so strategic body that AI Assurance framework obviously will be embedded in an assurance process which we're working on we had our inaugural AI Community Practice in government about a month ago I think we had 400 OD people ATT returned so that was great to see um we got our next one on Monday um we're obviously participants and contributors to the National AI working Group which is essentially Chief data officers from each state and territory we're engaging with Academia actively we're looking to have some discussions around how we can partner on research programs we know that's not um I guess our strength in government or at least in our unit we do want to have conversations with vendors on your strategic road maps and we want to innovate um and experiment with new Services obviously one of the great things about generative AI in particular is the opportunity for communities and marginalized communities you know digital equity for people as long as they've got the connectivity and the ability to use these tools and that's where the rest of customer and digital group comes into play in terms of some of the strategies it's going to provide I think real opportunities for people who haven't had them before so what do we want to know um a how are you planning to integrate AI into your products and services because with everything we're doing there's obviously a risk of obsolescence um that's not the the only I guess decision point for why we would undertake a pilot or a Pock we need to learn we need to experiment but we do want to know where should government invest their time in services and what are our vendors doing where are they going to fill gaps um you know how might your investment and your product product road maps of your services shape our investment in future more broadly and that's what we're thinking about and I hope it's what the vendors are thinking about is how can we reshape government Service delivery you know that's the real power of some these tools is to rethink the way that we use systems are the systems we've got in place now going to be required in future are the processes that we have required um and something that I think is going to become more and more important is how do we capture and measure Roi on these Investments um there's a lot at the moment of thought around this is great we know people want to use these tools we know they can get value out of it but really we need to understand what the value is to government if we're going to invest money so I think that's a bit of a repeat probably the last um dot point there is important as well because in the policy space we're starting to understand well what are the policy levers available for government to regulate and assure AI um there we responded to the federal discussion paper on um responsible use of AI and I think there some common themes around industry-led um regulation in specific domains and Broad regulation of the application not the AI models themselves so regulation of the use of AI there's obviously very smart people in the room and an industry that can help government understand what those leevers are and that is me thank you thank you Nathan uh as I said very informative very exciting uh that particular field of work and moving at a pace that uh we probably don't normally see either generally across community and industry but also uh within government so Nathan's done some fantastic work to uh work through a number of um what we'd normally see as barriers to make things happen so congratulations Nathan can I ask team Ashley and Nathan to come back onto the floor and grab a seat and we'll have a bit of time for Q&A first question is sound level is very poor good we fix that I hope okay uh I do have a question what's the government's timeline and focus relative to Workforce integration and a particular mobility and optimization timeline and focus relative to Workforce integration and in particular mobility and optimization I'm looking to the panel of uh very intelligent um people here um so so Tim what what are you doing from a Mobility perspective or Ashley sorry was going to speak um uh look I I think our Workforce is sorting out the mobility issue for us uh we're seeing an enormous amount of churn uh that happens I'm I'm presuming that the question was around uh people moving within government as opposed to mobile devices um uh and uh we're seeing you know generation uh Zed Alpha whoever they are in noways um uh you know moving uh treating government jobs a bit like uh the gig economy and moving very rapidly between agencies which is great it's uh pollinates uh you know fresh ideas which is terrific um uh but uh you know I don't think that we actually have to do anything to try and drive a Workforce Mobility because it's happening anyone else Tim agree yeah yeah agree so we are saying I'm glad we're not paying him for this you couldn't afford it anyway good good yeah we are seeing a lot of Mobility across government at the moment um uh you know for people with the appropriate skills but it you know like in I'm sure every organization it is hard to get great people uh and we're we're competing uh we're trying particularly in the digital space to uh not compete against each other and uh you know eat each other alive um that works in many instances but not all and as I said we've got the cios working closely together looking at those sort of issues and opportunities can I throw it to the audience who would have a question for me I I can pick some names out I I can see some people I know here's one thank you hi Paul prage from G1 Asset Management uh i' just like to it's possibly a question to ask a bit early but just wondering if you have any initial indications of um what the uh budget for ICT capital expenditure might be for next year and and in the possible years ensuing as part of a three or five year plan I guess leading up eventually to the 2032 Olympics um because it's been fairly tight in that area and I'm sure a number of suppliers in this room would testify to that in terms of opportunities of being able to engage with the Queens government and just wondering if the pur strings are likely to be released to some degree or or whether you have any indications yeah well I guess the reality is that's where we're at now in terms of from our perspective at least developing that detailed business case to put to government the case for Change and and what's needed um as hopefully I outlined you know we know that we're embarking upon a pretty significant business change and for us to execute it correctly the change management aspect is more important than the technology piece no disrespect but I think probably most of us that have been around long enough know that the technology piece will be fine it will do what technology does it's the change management piece that's capturing hearts and minds of the workforce across the state that will result in successful outcome so we've designed and scaled our our prop program accordingly um yeah so there'll be we think we've attempted to provide for an appropriate number uh in terms of what that investment will be required over um yeah what we think will be through the very earliest we're hoping to be able to go live it be this sort of time frame 2026 if we were lucky uh in terms of the change impact and then we know that we and we're planning for a whole series of improvements and to to Circle back around and look for opportunities cuz there's so much today that we don't know what we don't know in terms of the opportunity presented to us and you know as Nathan sort of outlined what impact is AI going to have on property assessments you know how we do we get to the point of sending the Drone up to fly around the Ken's Convention Center to to tell us what the outcome already is um you know we're already using drones to do that but it's still a human that's that's looking at the video footage so yeah from our perspective we're certainly pitching to government what we think is an appropriate figure how about that I think it's probably pretty fair to say that you know the lead up the Olympics there uh the state government's going to be under a lot of pressure in terms of budget um elic don't come cheap uh and there's stadiums and all sorts of other things that need to be built that are going to compete for the available cap capital so uh probably uh the thing that's going to be really really critical for uh ICT is delivering Great Value yeah and thank thanks Paul so obviously we went through savings and debt uh where government uh spent less in this particular space through that coid period we're coming out of that um it is a tight fiscal environment but I think there is a little bit of uh I won't say Unshackled but loosening of uh government spend in the digital space uh we're currently looking at our what we call ATR system so our Legacy Legacy debt uh and just looking at how government should respond to that as well um I can tell you on the digital dashboard and coincidentally I looked at it last night um there's about $900 Million worth of investment uh in Queensland government on that dashboard at the moment uh but a fair portion of that is in Queensland health so you'd probably find about 50% in Queensland Health at the moment um but yeah have a look at the dashboard it gives you a good feel of where money is being spent on initiatives so there are other things other than specific initiatives but on initiatives in government at the moment other questions there's just right yeah good good guys it's an Richards here from integration Works um Ashley you mentioned uh a potential opportunity for uh systems integration are you actually looking at internal systems integration within DJ or is that um hooking into the wider ho of government uh interoperability strategy assuming there is one um we will be integrating with Hall of government services uh we're a good corporate citizen uh we have a lot of services already integrated with the Tellis once my Queensland solution uh and we uh if we can leverage SA or any other investment governments already made we will do that um uh but the integration that we're are likely to um pursue if it comes to pass and it may not um is that we'll be looking to take uh all of those modules that exist in our uh Dynamics and Microsoft stack um platform uh and compose some sort of Business Solution that meets the particular needs of you know that Myriad of different business units uh so whilst they all might be on you know a common technology or a common platform uh you've got to um you know Plum them all together so that's the sort of integration we're looking for hopefully that answers your question great I think there's another question over here hi David from B sorry a bit further away um so there's not a single client at the moment whether it's federal state um you know commercial clients are we talking to that on focused on AI and it's really really exciting from that point of view um The Challenge as you know obviously is that unless your data is in order unless your governance structures and that are are in order um it's going to go down a very ugly path very quickly is there a drive from government from agencies to try and accelerate getting your data in order so that we can start focusing on um Ai and how that can actually benefit the community yeah there is um sorry um it's in many conversations we're having right now um part of my remit is also the data strategy for Queensland and we've just done a big piece of work around a data sharing framework with Queens government understanding legislative and policy environment a portion of that is around data governance obviously but yeah I see data quality data governance being a really important theme for agencies moving forward before the adoption of of these AI tools more broadly even you think about you know something like co-pilot I think as you do with most data analytics projects the first thing you find out is how bad your data is when you start to to drill into it and I think that's going to be highlighted even more so when it comes to the use of llms and we start to try and hit our unstructured data um it's it's a bit of an unknown for departments at the moment but we are talking around what does Readiness look like for AI um across our instructed data particularly in government so yeah there's um there's not a strategy or an approach in place yet but it's definitely something we're talking about and if someone's got some ideas to bring to the table more than happy to thanks Nathan any other questions can I remind if yo

2023-10-22 03:01

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