Question 10a and 10b.

Q10a. Are government users becoming more GEMSD ready and how? Q10b. How has the introduction of GEMSD altered skill sets of government

employees, and has this been successful? Question 10a: Summary

Opinion from eleven local participants (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 10, 11, 12, and 14) was that commercial, other government and private customers have become more GEMSD ready and savvy. The theme from a commercial users perspective was predominantly to make use of a potential competitive advantage ‘they operate in a very cost

competitive industry and so they are very keen to utilise any advantages that technology (and GEMSD) will give them… we have been quite pleased with how technologically savvy our stakeholders have actually been (1).’

A second opinion from a commercial and private user perspective was that these users had become more literate and were demanding GEMSD ‘well you know if QANTAS go do it why can’t the Victorian government do it (6)?’

Other theme factors attributed to users becoming more GEMSD ready were the evolution of users from schools and universities to the workforce, suggesting literacy levels gained at schools and universities were being transported into the workforce and private use. This was supported by five participants (4, 5, 8, 13 and 14) ‘by default, all the kids at schools are pushing their parents whether they like it or not (4)’ and ‘they [students] are being very literate and showing their parents how to use it (5).’

A government pro-active theme emerged with five participants (2, 4, 5, 8, and 13) suggesting government has provided the necessary environment for better GEMSD literacy, by lowering the cost of access through cheaper broadband and more public access points, by creating awareness via ‘the strategic communications branch within the department of Premier and Cabinet (4)’, and encouraging ‘greater data speed across mobile device platforms (13).’ Surmising that generally ‘the infrastructure gap is being addressed (3).’

An inhibitor theme was identified by three local participants (4, 8 and 14) centred on access and socioeconomic issues which resulted from a user demographic profiling report ‘suggests that use of government services and information remains stagnating (4),’ due to ‘providing access to technology(s) in low socio-economic areas, areas of hardness and disadvantages generally (8),’ and ‘lack of mobile infrastructure in remote areas (14).’

Overseas participants acknowledged the need to increase user literacy but failed to comment adequately.

Question 10b: Summary

‘There are still a lot of things in government that need to be done smarter (5),’ was a common theme amongst local participants in relation to question 10b. However of those who responded to the question, eleven local participants (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, and 14) agreed ‘there has been an increase in skills (1),’ with varying degrees of ‘increase’ depending upon which department or agency was examined. It was

suggested that this is due to the level of autonomy in each department, as one

participant described ‘health has been a very IT literate environment for a reasonable period… I don’t know if that has been the case elsewhere. I think education is trying to grasp it (2).’

The disparity was noted in a different way concluding ‘we have become more au fait with general IT concepts… there has not been a big increase in the core IT expertise of government employees, I think what has happened we have brought it in and we have become a lot better at contract managing IT providers and often multiple providers, I do not think in-house we have increased our IT expertise that much. We have just brought it in. (1)’ This would suggest the disparity may be due to IT not being a ‘core’ business and should be contracted into government hence the increase in ‘general IT concepts’ rather than core IT skills.

Of the three local participants (6, 7, and 8) who did not think skills had improved a common theme emerged, ‘you have some real luddites at senior executive levels in IT (6),’ suggesting there was a lack of leadership at some senior executive levels. This theme was supported with comments like ‘We still have issues with PDA’s working properly in a standard operating environment, these are just ridiculous things’. I have been involved with both the private sector and working in government with

government for 6-7 years now and there has not been much of a move internally (7),’ or on a more operative level, ‘no-one offered any induction training systems into all the different desktop systems that we use (8).’

An alternate opinion offered, it was difficult to convert existing staff into the required staff for successful GEMSD operation concluding ‘they have evolved and they have been very good at doing things in an ad hoc way, they have understood the business side of it, but they have not understood the IT side at all (3).’

It was noted by overseas participants that the ‘introduction of GEMSD has tremendously challenged and significantly influenced the technical skills of employees, who remain the ultimate driving force for the success of government electronic and mobile service delivery, and not technology per se (OS3).’ This highlights the need for ‘internal’ driving of GEMSD initiatives which requires

changes of employee skills without loss of motivation. Another noted ‘in the

government area there is a lot of new training being done to bring the service level of staff… up to the level of literacy required by IT (OS2).’