Building e-government
Enterprise architecture
The previous sections illustrate how government and people will interact in the future. Using the innovative power of ICT to achieve the goals of the Digital Strategy and the Development Goals for the State Services will be pivotal to achieving this. Information will be the lifeblood of the transformation process, and how government manages information will determine the success of this Strategy.
In a networked model, planning and implementation activities must be coordinated. Governance over existing and future application and data exchange standards, to improve and enable further interoperability, will be central to achieving the networked model described in this Strategy. This calls for a comprehensive and coordinated approach to managing ICT in the State Services which can be facilitated by an agreed federated enterprise architecture.
The 2003 E-government Strategy recognised the need for a State Sector ICT architecture. A first step in achieving this has been the development of the E-government Interoperability Framework (e-GIF). The e-GIF provides a successful model for developing a more comprehensive architecture to support the transformation of government, and respond to our increasingly networked society.
Using enterprise architectures to provide a framework for individual business and ICT development is becoming conventional wisdom. This concept is now being extended to government – applying enterprise architecture practices to the New Zealand State Services as a whole, while recognising agency autonomy and agencies’ own architectures.
Federated enterprise architecture
This figure shows the relationship of a federated enterprise architecture (FEA) to agency-specific enterprise architectures. The jurisdiction of an FEA is mainly in the inter-agency space where connectivity and interoperability are needed. However, an FEA also includes some aspects of the agency space where common data or services are used. For example, the Government Logon Service authentication tool is a common resource which agencies will access. Agency connectors will have to fit with the standards, policies, and protocols needed to use the service.
Agencies will need to recognise the broader, common interests. But they will continue to develop and maintain capabilities that they will not need to share in the wider arena. For this reason, they will still need to undertake relevant activities to keep and develop their own ICT capability.
As the network model becomes more sophisticated, the number and availability of authoritative data stores is likely to grow. Access to these stores by other agencies and third parties will also grow as needed. Examples are the Identity Verification Service, being developed under the auspices of the All-of-government Authentication Programme, which will provide the authoritative repository for online identity data; and the Companies Office, which will provide the authoritative source for company information.
The network model places increased emphasis on data quality. Administrative, descriptive, and access metadata will be essential. The schemas and formats of these will need to be maintained and published.
Subject to data access constraints, there is no reason why third parties cannot also have access to government data stores. Examples of this model can already be seen where third parties have taken legislation or topographical data, provided additional value, and resold the product. There are sound reasons for users, third party vendors, and intermediaries to embrace these opportunities.
User-centred services can be more easily tailored to the needs of niche groups and individuals if these parties put together the services they need and add value to the authoritative data. People in communities and business are also likely to be more nimble and responsive to their needs than government and able to respond more rapidly.
Improved access to data also allows users and interest groups to draw their own conclusions on policy matters, thereby increasing the transparency of agency decision-making. This, in turn, will lead to increased trust in government.
As an FEA becomes more important, governance of the direction, allocation of resource responsibility, and funding support will increase. Models such as the All-of-government Operations Advisory Board and the Digital Strategy Steering Committee have been set up to help cross-agency governance. Comparable sector groups include the Education Sector ICT Standing Committee, the Health Information Strategy Action Committee (HISAC), and the Justice Sector Information Committee. Further developments will be undertaken in these areas to provide the support and direction needed for an FEA to be implemented successfully.
