A Whole-of-Government Approach to Information and Services

By 2004, it is expected that the public sector will be working like a single, integrated organisation, rather than a collection of seemingly independent service providers. The diagram shows the broad structure of this organisation.

Access (Channels) Layer

The government portal will provide a common way of finding all government information and services, whether online or offline. There will be multiple entry points to government, in some cases managed by collaborating agencies where this leads to more customer focused and effective service delivery.

Agency Delivery (Information, Services and Processes) Layer

Government organisations will increasingly integrate their information and services with those of other government organisations where this makes sense for users. This will improve people's experience of government. It may also achieve savings and reduce compliance costs.

Agency Infrastructure (Business) Layer

Government organisations will continue to use their own in-house and outsourced resources and applications to deliver their unique information and services. However, agencies will increasingly collaborate in the development and use of their infrastructure, where appropriate.

Common Infrastructure (Foundation) Layer

Government organisations will deploy their business applications and manage corporate processes on a common infrastructure. It will consist of applications such as e-billing, e-procurement and metadata management, all-of-government policies and standards such as the interoperability framework, shared services such as authentication and infrastructure protection and common infrastructure such as shared networks.