An element of the APS Capability Review model is ‘Innovative Delivery’. More specifically, Capability Reviews assess how well agencies support and incentivise innovation enterprise wide; effectively manage risk; and implement and evaluate new ideas linked to core business.
The Capability Reviews undertaken to date identified many discrete pockets of innovation across the APS. These often relate to service delivery and data collection and analysis. Capability Review reports frequently comment on the culture of agencies to promote innovation, their ability to balance innovation with risk and the existence of formal frameworks and processes that support the delivery of innovative solutions agency-wide.
In terms of results, reviews of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, the Australian Bureau of Statistics and the then Department of Regional Australia, Local Government, Arts and Sport rated innovation strongly. Another 12 agencies were assessed as well placed and six as development areas. In response to review findings, agencies are implementing various solutions. This includes establishing reward and recognition programmes to encourage and promote employee innovation, frameworks and processes to prioritise, fund and evaluate initiatives, as well as appointing leaders as innovation champions.
The Australian Taxation Office: myTax
The Australian Taxation Office (ATO) has focused efforts on providing better online services with easier, quicker tax and super services now just a click away.
This year, the ATO made lodging online even easier with the launch of myTax in July 2014—a new online option for 1.4 million people with straightforward tax affairs. People can access myTax on their computer or, for the first time, their mobile device, including smart phones and tablets.
myTax does much of the hard work for people by prefilling their tax return. It is then just a matter of reviewing the information, adding missing details and hitting ‘submit’. It is the fastest, most convenient way to lodge. Not only is lodging online easier and quicker, people can track their lodged tax return, update contact details and check their superannuation online.
By the end of 2014 it is expected that about three million Australians will have linked their new myGov account (the one-stop government services website) to the ATO to manage their tax and superannuation affairs online. Feedback has been positive about the ease and speed of linking a myGov account to the ATO.
In another break with tradition, the ATO, in partnership with the Department of Human Services, opened the first digital myGov shopfront in Brisbane's central business district in June 2014. The new shopfront, which has been well received, helps people transition to digital services and enables access to myGov.
