The State Government of Queensland released a new government ICT strategy on Friday, setting a roadmap for the development of government’s IT systems to deliver the best results for citizens.

The Queensland Government ICT Strategy 2013-17 aims to reform public service and make government more efficient, flexible, and better able to meet the needs of its citizens. ICT will play a crucial role in this.

“The focus of this strategy is to determine how the government can best use digital information to improve the services it delivers to Queenslanders”, stated Ian Walker, IT Minister of Queensland, while unveiling the strategy last week.

The strategy has an ambitious vision: ‘A transformed public service that is focused on improving services for Queenslanders, by better use and analysis of government data, and by using modern, cost-efficient technology’.

Published by the Department of Science, Information Technology, Innovation and the Arts, the strategy defines three objectives within two main government outcomes.

For example, the first desired outcome is revitalising front-line services by delivering effective digital services for clients. This gives the government a pathway for providing better front-line services such as health, fire, and police services, to citizens.

The strategy recommends several different actions, such as reducing duplication of effort through consolidation of channels and solutions, increasing the percentage of households and businesses using online services, and increasing connectivity of schools and universities to develop online education services.

Another desired outcome stated in the strategy is delivering better infrastructure and better planning, by providing effective digital services for government. The strategy recommends that to avoid the high cost of maintaining, upgrading, or replacing ICT facilities, agencies should source ICT services instead of systems, hence migrating to procurement of ICT-as-a-service.

“We will be a government that uses ICT to better share information between agencies and the community while maintaining appropriate information security and privacy of individuals,” declared Walker. The complete strategy can be found here.