Government 2.0 Policy in Australian

Background

Until 2007 the concept of Government 2.0 was largely unknown or disregarded in Australia, with governments pursing existing egovernment policies designed to streamline processes and reduce costs by providing online alternatives to common agency transactions.

During the 2007 Federal election social media first appeared in Australia's national political spotlight. Numerous candidates, in particular the Australian Labor Party leader Kevin Rudd, employed social media to communicate with and engage citizens.

A variety of organisations and commentators also deployed social media and Government 2.0 tools designed to assist the public to understand and debate electoral issues. This included Google's Federal Election map and YouTube channel1, a precursor of similar tools used in the 2008 US Presidential election.

Some commentators termed the 2007 Federal election “Australia's First Social Media Election”2, and the impact of social media on the outcome, a Labor victory unseating the incumbent Liberal-National Coalition, has been widely scrutinised. Studies of the election results indicate that there was a strong positive correlation between candidate success and the level of social media engagement and that a normalisation of the internet as an information gathering and engagement tool was taking place across the community3.

The potential scope of social media and Government 2.0 became clearer following the US's 2008 Presidential election. Senator Obama's campaign was studied closely by Australian politicians and social media commentators. In Australia politicians began to appreciate that social media could have profound influence on electioneering. This stronger confidence in the online channel also supported Australian public servants to more openly begin exploring official use of social media for communication and engagement purposes and a number of government departments began pilot social media initiatives to support and complement their existing media and engagement strategies.

During 2008 several Australian state governments began considering or developing policies related to social media use. Federally the Australian Public Service Commission (APSC) released Circular 2008/08: Interim protocols for online media participation4 which provided advice supportive of social media engagement by federal agencies and public servants.

1 2007 Australian Federal Election – Google Australia – http://www.google.com.au/election2007/ 2 Australia's First Social Media Election – John Johnson – JJProjects blog –

http://jjprojects.blogspot.com/2007/09/australias-first-social-media-election.html5 Moments When Digital Media Transformed Australian Politics – Julie Posetti, PBS Media Shift – http://www.pbs.org/mediashift/2010/11/5-moments-when-digital-media-transformed-australian-politics308.html

3 Crossing the Web 2.0 Frontier? Candidates and Campaigns Online in the Australian Federal Election of 2007* – Rachel K. Gibson & Ian McAllister – http://internet-politics.cies.iscte.pt/spip.php?article340 Do Online Election Campaigns Win Votes? The 2007 Australian YouTube Election – Anon – www.dcern.org.uk/documents/Aus07webcampaigns_anon.doc

4 Circular 2008/8: Interim protocols for online media participation – APSC – http://www.apsc.gov.au/circulars/circular088.htm

Formation of an Australian Government 2.0 policy

The Australian Government set foot on the path to a Government 2.0 policy in mid-2009.

This began with the creation of the Government 2.0 Taskforce, announced on 22 June 2009 by then Minister for Finance and Deregulation, Lindsay Tanner MP and Special Minister of State, Senator Joe Ludwig at a Government 2.0 Public Sphere5 organised by the office of Senator Kate Lundy.

The Ministers affirmed the Australian Government's recognition of the pace of technological change, the growing impact of the internet on Australian society and the increasing opportunities to use online media for collaboration with the community as well as for information dissemination6.

The Taskforce was mandated to define Government 2.0 in an Australian context and provide recommendations on key policies and processes. It included 15 members from across public, not-for-profit and private sectors7 and was chaired by Dr Nicholas Gruen. Secretariat support was provided by the Australian Government Information Management Office (AGIMO), part of the Department of Finance and Deregulation.

Establishing a significant Web 2.0 presence to engage public servants and citizens, the Taskforce stepped beyond the usual bounds of a government consultation and report process to illustrate how public consultations could be held within a Government 2.0 context.

The consultation and engagement process employed by the Taskforce used crowd sourcing, blogs, Twitter, an idea prioritisation engine, collaborative editing and involved releasing documents in draft formats in a highly transparent process. This also led to several 'failures'. There was a limited degree of engagement with the Taskforce's Facebook page and mixed success in crowd sourcing transcriptions of recorded presentations. These 'failures' served to support the process by providing practical examples of how, and how not to, design and manage Government 2.0 consultation and engagement processes.

The Taskforce commissioned a number of research and development projects8 to inform agencies and design tools and processes that could be reused by future Australian Government 2.0 initiatives. The project outputs were released under open copyright licenses to ensure they would be freely available for reuse and extension by government agencies.

The primary work of the Government 2.0 Taskforce was to develop a guidance and recommendation report for the Australian Government. This was completed and released in December 2009 as the Engage: Getting on with Government 2.09

This report outlined thirteen recommendations for the development of Government 2.0 policy and practice in Australia for consideration.

5 Public Sphere #2 – Government 2.0: Policy and Practice – Senator Kate Lundy – http://www.katelundy.com.au/2009/05/29/public-sphere-2-open-government-policy-and-practice/

6 Speech: Launch of the Government 2.0 Taskforce – Lindsay Tanner –http://gov2.net.au/blog/2009/06/22/speech-launch-of-the-government-2-0-taskforce/

7 Government 2.0 Taskforce Membership – Government 2.0 Taskforce – http://gov2.net.au/members/index.html 8 Government 2.0 Taskforce Project outputs – Government 2.0 Taskforce – http://gov2.net.au/projects/index.html 9 Engage: Getting on with Government 2.0 report – Government 2.0 Taskforce –

http://www.finance.gov.au/publications/gov20taskforcereport/index.html

Complementary government policies and activities

Throughout 2009 a series of other activities across the Australian Government saw significant growth in the awareness and use of Government 2.0, including data transparency.

Both the Australian Bureau of Statistics and Geosciences Australia began releasing public data under Creative Commons open licenses and, in support of a Taskforce data mash-up competition, AGIMO launched the data.australia.gov.au beta site with a range of reusable government datasets.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd launched a new Prime Minister's website (www.pm.gov.au) with a significant focus on social media through blogs, online chats and Twitter, serving as a practical example of the approach being encouraged across the Australian Government.

The Department of Health and Ageing released the yourHealth website (www.yourhealth.gov.au) as a Government 2.0 engagement vehicle for the national health reform consultation process, featuring public blogs, polls, video submissions and comment mechanisms.

The Australian Tax Office (ATO) announced an SME Tax Forum (www.smetaxforum.com.au) to allow small and medium enterprises to“directly provide insights and perspectives to the ATO on taxation and business issues.” The Forum allowed businesses to provide feedback on tax matters, interact in a closed community and participate in online discussions with senior tax officials.

The Department of Broadband, Communication and the Digital Economy (DBCDE) launched a closed youth group, allowing over 300 secondary students from across Australia to participate in online discussions regarding cyber-bullying, privacy, illegal content and other youth issues10. In launching the initiative Minister Stephen Conroy stated that “The Youth Advisory Group is a unique opportunity for young people to contribute to policy development by advising the Government on cyber-safety concerns and solutions.”

In November 2009 the Australian Public Service Commission cancelled its interim online media participation Circular, replacing it with Circular 2009/6: Protocols for online media participation11. The new circular took a more proactive stance towards social media engagement by Australian Government agencies and public servants, stating that,

“Web 2.0 provides public servants with unprecedented opportunities to open up government decision making and implementation to contributions from the community. In a professional and respectful manner, APS employees should engage in robust policy conversations.”

Also during 2009, proactive public servants began forming unofficial communities of practice around Government 2.0 and social media to share information and expertise. These included the Government 2.0 Australia Group (https://groups.google.com/group/gov20canberra), APS OzLoop (http://apsozloop.ning.com/) and the Online Communicators' Forum *http://www.linkedin.com/groups?mostPopular=&gid=3008589). A hashtag #gov2au was established on Twitter (http://twitter.com/search?q=%23gov2au) to group discussions and share information on initiatives. All of these groups remain active, to a greater or lesser extent, today and have been joined by several official communities.

10 Media Release: Youth to advise Government on cyber-bullying and cyber-threats – Senator the Hon Stephen Conroy, Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy – http://www.minister.dbcde.gov.au/media/media_releases/2009/031

11 Circular 2009/6: Protocols for online media participation – APSC –http://www.apsc.gov.au/circulars/circular096.htm

Introduction of an Australian Government Government 2.0 policy

The first months of 2010 heralded a slow period for Government 2.0 in Australian Government. While existing activities continued, few new initiatives were introduced as departments waited for guidance from the Government in its response to the Government 2.0 Taskforce's report.

In May 2010 the Australian Government formally issued a Government Response. Twelve of the thirteen recommendations in the Engage: Getting on with Government 2.0 report were formally accepted and, for the most part, endorsed by the Australian Government in the Government Response to the Report of the Government 2.0 Taskforce12. The final recommendation, “Encourage info-philanthropy”, was deferred pending the outcome of other Government reviews.

The report and the Government's response received significant praise both in Australia and internationally from respected commentators. For example Italian-based Gartner VP Distinguished Analyst Andrea Di Maio posted in his blog “Australia Beats the US Again on Government 2.0”13;

“if the Aussies walk the talk, they have a very good chance to be the real leaders in the Gov 2.0 / Open Government race”.

The same period saw the formal inclusion of Government 2.0 considerations in another three major reform processes led by the Australian Government, providing a strong basis for further action.

On 8 May 2010 the government formally accepted the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet report on public service reform, Ahead of the Game: Blueprint for Reform of Australian Government Administration14.

The report flagged the use of Government 2.0 in Section 2, “Creating more open government”, which included the recommendations that the government should,

“2.1 Enable citizens to collaborate with government in policy and service design Develop and implement new approaches to collaboration and consultation

with citizens on policy and service delivery issues. Make public sector data available to the wider public in a manner consistent

with privacy principles.”

The Australian Public Service Management Advisory Committee (MAC) completed its ongoing work on public sector change and innovation, releasing its report Empowering change: Fostering innovation in the Australian Public Service15 in May 2010. Amongst highlighting the need for improving collaboration, providing support for experimentation and introducing idea management systems, all activities that can be enabled through the use of Web 2.0 tools, the report stated in one recommendation that

“agencies should be timely and smart adopters of Web 2.0 tools and approaches”.

The third reform process related to the Freedom of Information reform policy taken to the 2007 election by the Australian Labor Party.

12 Government Response to the Report of the Government 2.0 – Australian Government –http://www.finance.gov.au/publications/govresponse20report/index.html

13 Australia Beats the US Again on Government 2.0 – Andrea Di Maio – Gartner – http://blogs.gartner.com/andrea_dimaio/2010/05/03/australia-beats-the-us-again-on-government-2-0/

14 Ahead of the Game: Blueprint for the Reform of Australian Government Administration – Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet – http://www.dpmc.gov.au/publications/aga_reform/aga_reform_blueprint/index.cfm

15 Empowering change: Fostering innovation in the Australian Public Service – Management Advisory Committee – Australian Public Service Commission – http://www.apsc.gov.au/mac/empoweringchange.htm

The policy aligned with emerging Government 2.0 thought by strongly supported openness and transparency in government “with the principal objects of promoting a pro-disclosure culture across the Government and building a stronger foundation for more openness in government.”16

The contingent legislation, the Australian Information Commissioner Act 2010 and Freedom of Information Amendment (Reform) Act 2010, were passed into legislation in May 2010 and most measures came into effect from November 2010.

By the end of May 2010 Government 2.0 had significant visible political support and momentum in the Australian Government and several of the recommendations in the Taskforce's Engage: Getting on with Government 2.0 report were already underway.

Role of Public Administration

Public administration played a central role in the development of the Australian Government's Government 2.0 policy, with widespread consultation and reference to existing leadership examples used to inform the thinking behind the Government 2.0 Taskforce's Final Report and the other reform reports that have complemented the Government 2.0 policy.

Following the Government's acceptance of most recommendations in the Final Report, the task of implementing the Government 2.0 policy on an ongoing basis has fallen significantly on public administration, with oversight through Ministerial offices.

Notably much of this work has not been specifically funded, with only a small amount of additional funding provided to AGIMO, as lead agency, to coordinate the delivery of the recommendations.

This lack of additional funding has had the largest impact in the Freedom of Information (FOI) area, where Departments have been required to modify and update their information publishing processes to meet the new publication requirements, with the potential for agencies to bear significantly more cost across the FOI process.

It has also impacted on the area of Accessibility, however as the Australian government has had mandated accessibility requirements for websites for more than ten years there is less reason for agencies to seek additional funding.

Despite the lack of funding support, there has been a significant level of activity directed at meeting the requirements of the twelve endorsed recommendations from the Engage: Getting on with Government 2.0 report.

The central recommendation of the report, “A declaration of open government by the Australian Government”, was met on 16 July by then Minister for Finance and Deregulation, Lindsay Tanner MP, who released the Declaration17 via AGIMO's blog, stating in part that:

“The Australian Government now declares that, in order to promote greater participation in Australia’s democracy, it is committed to open government based on a culture of engagement, built on better access to and use of government held information, and sustained by the innovative use of technology.

16 Freedom of Information (FOI) Reform – Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, Australia – http://www.dpmc.gov.au/foi/foi_reform.cfm

17 Declaration of Open Government – Lindsay Tanner – AGIMO blog – http://agimo.govspace.gov.au/2010/07/16/declaration-of-open-government/

Citizen collaboration in policy and service delivery design will enhance the processes of government and improve the outcomes sought. Collaboration with citizens is to be enabled and encouraged. Agencies are to reduce barriers to online engagement, undertake social networking, crowd sourcing and online collaboration projects and support online engagement by employees, in accordance with the Australian Public Service Commission Guidelines.”

As an action from “Recommendation 4: Encourage public servants to engage online”, AGIMO built on the work they'd performed as the Secretariat of the Government 2.0 Taskforce and developed an agency blog (http://agimo.govspace.gov.au) to support ongoing engagement and discussion, online showcase (http://showcase.govspace.gov.au/) to highlight initiatives across government and initiated a official Government 2.0 community using their existing Govdex wiki and forum platform (http://www.govdex.gov.au).

AGIMO used this opportunity to build Govspace (http://www.govspace.gov.au) as a platform for government blogs employing a custom installation of the open source Wordpress blog platform. The service now hosts over 25 government blogs from an assortment of agencies18.

As a key action from “Recommendation 2: Coordinate with leadership, guidance and support”, AGIMO was assigned as lead agency and formed a Government 2.0 Steering Group19 in July 2010 involving senior representatives of nine agencies with the mandate to take “overall responsibility for developing and implementing the Government 2.0 work program, reporting to Government on its progress, and for providing advice, guidance and support to agencies on Government 2.0 issues.” The Steering Group is reporting on its activities publicly via AGIMO's blog.

AGIMO has also taken carriage of “Recommendation 9: Accessibility”, which was already part of its mandate, and released guidance and a Transition Roadmap20 towards government compliance with the W3C's Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.0 Double A level (WCAG 2.0 AA).

Other recommendations have been delegated to other agencies within the Australian Government. For example “Recommendation 6: Make public sector information open, accessible and reusable” and “Recommendation 8: Information publication scheme” form part of the mandate of the Office of the Information Commissioner, created as part of the Freedom of Information reforms. “Recommendation 11: Privacy and confidentiality” has become part of the work of both the Information Commissioner and the Privacy Commissioner.

Impact on Public Administration

There has been a measurable shift in the approach towards public administration. Besides the legislatively mandated changes in Freedom of Information, which it has been a requirement for all government agencies to meet, many government agencies have begun considering online media as a central medium for their engagement and communications activities rather than as an adjunct.

The number of Australian Government agencies utilising services such as Twitter has grown rapidly, from less than ten two years ago to more than 50 accounts today. Equally there have been several notable mobile applications created, such as the Business.gov.au iPhone app and the

18 Directory of Govspace blogs – GovSpace – Australian Government Information Management Office – http://govspace.gov.au/directory/

19 Government 2.0 Steering Group – AGIMO blog – http://agimo.govspace.gov.au/2010/09/15/the-government-2-0-steering-group/

20 Accessibility – Australian Government Web Guide – AGIMO – http://webguide.gov.au/accessibility-usability/accessibility/

National Toilet Map, Swap It and National Drugs Campaign iPhone apps, all from the Department of Health and Ageing.

Online engagement is increasingly playing a part in public consultations, with blogs being employed to support engagement in consultations ranging from procurement guidelines and IT service panels to customer charters for service delivery agencies.

The number of blogs used in Australian government has continued to grow at a regular pace. There appears to only have been one public blog from an Australian government agency in 2007. Today there are at least 40, although there is evidence that the level of expertise across government in effectively writing and managing blogs remains low.

Communications campaigns across government are also employing social media channels in a more central manner, with examples such as The Line from FaHCSIA (www.theline.gov.au) and the Department of Health and Ageing's Swap It Don't Stop It campaign (www.swapit.gov.au).

This represents a shift in communications thinking away from the predominant use of traditional media to drive traffic to static websites, as has been the main government practice over the last five years, towards an awareness that engaged online communities present significantly greater benefits for increasing message frequency and effectiveness in information campaigns and supporting lasting behaviour change throughout social marketing campaigns.

Perhaps the biggest impact on public administration, however, has been in the adoption of social media by public servants themselves. While significant concerns regarding ICT security, productivity loss and the risk of inappropriate behaviour during the use of internal or external social media tools still remain in some corners of the Australian Public Service, a significant minority of departments have now instituted effective staff social media guidance and are beginning to unlock access to social media channels.

This change is being further driven by the increasing use of social media by government agencies to interact with external audiences. As agencies such as the Australian Public Service Commission experiment with using blogs to engage public servants in consultations and with other Departments such as Innovation, Industry, Science and Research and Finance already using blogs to interact with and inform public servants across government, the rationale behind blocking official staff use of these tools comes under significant pressure.

The question of staff access to social media has also been challenged by the rising number of agencies employing social media channels in external engagement, such as ImmiTV (http://www.youtube.com/user/ImmiTV) from the Department of Immigration and Citizenship. Refusing staff access to the same information made available to the public can result in inefficiencies in customer contact and communication services.

There is also anecdotal evidence that Australian government agencies which provide greater access to social media are more attractive as employers to younger staff.

The increasing access to social media channels by Australian public servants has already seen an increase in public service engagement and collaboration, both within and between agencies.

On the less positive side, there are signs that the public service is still maturing in its capabilities to effectively use social media and Government 2.0.

Due to the relative speed of the introduction and mandate for the use of Government 2.0 approaches

and technologies, a number of agencies lack experienced staff and established systems to effectively design, develop and manage Government 2.0 initiatives. The signs of this are evident in the use of Govspace. Firstly, many agencies have begun using the service due to challenges in introducing similar technologies into their own agency in a timely and cost-effective fashion. Often agency ICT teams are focused on managing legacy systems, or have to focus their attention on managing the complex technical solutions required for a large modern enterprise. They do not always have internal expertise in designing, developing or selecting social media tools and may be unfamiliar with many of the opensource products on the market.

Equally the use of Government 2.0 channels and social media requires different types of audience engagement skills than some traditional communications or policy activities. The style of communication in online forums, via Facebook, or when writing blog posts and even Tweets can be quite different, with the need to have escalation processes for managing borderline inappropriate behaviour. Public servants may require significant technical skills to manage users who are familiar with technical platforms.

Different approval processes for content may also be required. Whereas often social media channels may be treated as written documents, for example, requiring a Minute to a senior executive in order to approve a 140 character tweet, in some cases they may be more akin to phone calls, requiring the development of standardised scripts, 'tweetplates' and allowing more scope for personal engagement.

Impact on citizens

The impact of the Australian Government's Government 2.0 policy on citizens has been primarily positive, however the awareness of more advanced Government 2.0 initiatives has remained low due to a lack of significant media interest or promotion.

There has been significant public involvement in social media channels connected to communications campaigns, such as over 170,000 fans for the Department of Health and Ageing's Binge Drinking Facebook page (www.facebook.com/nationalbingedrinkingcampaign) and over 60,000 fans for FaHCSIA's The Line Facebook page (www.facebook.com/theline).

Online consultations held by government have, for the most part, still mirrored traditional submission-based consultations, with limited opportunities for participants to respond to each other or collaborate. On this basis the public has treated this channel in a similar manner to previous email-based consultations, or more as newspaper letters to the editor.

Where government agencies have deployed more active Government 2.0 consultation facilities, often the capability for a robust discussion has been restricted by agency moderation policies or lack of engagement by agency staff. When pre-moderation is applied and every comment must be approved before publication the free-flow of discussion is halted. Where public servants are not willing or have the authority to intercede quickly to correct factual errors or reduce tensions before inappropriate conduct becomes a concern, discussions often deviate off topic, losing significant engagement value.

However where the preconditions for a constructive, engaged and free-flowing discussion have been met, such as during several AGIMO consultations, there has been high engagement from participants, limited only by the reach of consultation promotion or the level of interest on specific topics.

While a number of agencies have reported significant increases in FOI requests since the legislative changes, citizens have not as broadly embraced the release of public data. In many cases the

datasets released require some technical expertise to use in an effective manner, restricting the audience to technically skilled citizens. However, reflecting this against the experience in the UK and US, it may be appropriate for data sites to be primarily of interest to people with the skills to repurpose data effectively.

Attempts at crowd sourcing have generally been reasonably successful, with sufficient participation to ensure that this avenue continues to be explored by government agencies, however more often in a communications, than in a policy development, capacity.

Crisis communications has potentially been the star performer in Government 2.0 terms, with the example of the Queensland Police Media Twitter and Facebook pages, used as the official Queensland Government social media channels during the Queensland floods in early 2011 demonstrating that a well-managed government social media communications channel can address inaccuracies in other media as well as ensure the community is well informed.

There has not, however, been any illustrative examples at national level to demonstrate how effectively Australian Government agencies may deploy social media in crises.

Impact on business

The impact on business of the Australian Government's Government 2.0 policy has been hard to quantify.

While the Australian Tax Office's SME Forum demonstrates that there is ongoing value for both business and government in ongoing engagement, there have been few Government 2.0 initiatives targeting the commercial sector.

The largest areas of potential benefit, and disbenefit are in the open data and Freedom of Information areas. While it could be claimed there is significant value in allowing commercial entities to freely access and use government data, as it reduces barriers related to data cost and awareness, there have been concerns raised by Australian journalists in regards the potential loss of exclusivity in Freedom of Information requests.

Several agencies, such as Treasury21, have begun releasing public FOI data to the requester and to their website simultaneously. This reduces, or completely removes, the time-advantage organisations requesting information under Freedom of Information laws have traditionally held over their competitors.

With the risk of losing these 'exclusives', several journalists have argued that media outlets may reduce the number of FOI requests they make22, leading to information that otherwise would be in the public interest not being publicly reported. On this basis, they have argued, exclusivity provisions support government openness by providing finance incentive for media organisations to 'get there first'.

If this logic holds, there may also be the potential for incumbent large commercial interests to see the free release of some government data to the public as a threat to their commercial advantage.

21 Treasury stymies Coalition’s FOI ruse – Crispin Hull – http://www.crispinhull.com.au/2011/04/16/treasury-stymies-coalition%E2%80%99s-foi-ruse/

22 Friday arvo document dumps subvert FOI reform: editors – Tom Cowrie – Crikey – http://www.crikey.com.au/2011/04/08/friday-arvo-document-dumps-subvert-foi-reform-editors/ The coming open data battle - government versus commercial interests – Craig Thomler – eGovAU – http://egovau.blogspot.com/2011/03/coming-open-data-battle-government.html

Due to Australia's position as a leading resource nation with limited water resources, geospatial data might become a key source of tension, with the free release of some of this information tantamount to the reduction of barriers to entry into the industry.

This might also be reflected in areas such as health and ageing. Data from population health studies (suitably anonymised) might provide advantage to pharmaceuticals companies, insurance agencies or even medical and aged care facilities. Where the government's open data policy could enable new competitors to enter and contest markets there may be incentives for commercial interests to lobby the government to broaden 'safeguards' on privacy and security, reduce the quality or quantity of data released into the public domain or limiting certain datasets to release to 'trusted commercial entities' through payment mechanisms that only incumbents can afford.

Regulation of accountability issues

The Australian Government's policy position regarding Government 2.0 includes significant accountability measures and ties into existing regulatory frameworks for agencies and public servants.

The Terms of Reference23 for the Government 2.0 Steering Group enshrine it as a leadership and facilitation vehicle, not a central control mechanism or approval point for all Government 2.0 activity. The Terms outline the specific priorities of the Group as;

“Issue and maintain guidance on using technology to agencies to assist making the government more consultative, participatory and transparent.

Advise and assist the Lead Agency in establishing the criteria and judging candidates for the Government 2.0 awards.

Steering Group members will advocate the implementation of Government 2.0 in their own agencies and set an example for other agencies and the APS leadership.

Monitor and report to Government on the progress of the Government 2.0 work program.”

By employing terminology such as “issue and maintain guidance”, “advocate” and “set an example”, the implementation of Government 2.0 has remained at the discretion of each agency, but with guidance, examples and encouragement available to mitigate risk and overcome barriers to online engagement.

The other recommendations in the Government's Response to the Final Report of the Government 2.0 Taskforce provide for similar allocation of specific responsibilities to existing, or otherwise recently created administrative bodies, but with the emphasis on defining specific agendas (such as in the areas of Security and Accessibility) and providing advice and support to individual agencies.

Actual implementation of social media and Government 2.0 initiatives remains framed within the complex mesh of existing Australian Government guidelines. This includes existing procurement and financial requirements, the Australian Public Service Commission's Values and Code of Conduct for public servants (referenced in specific governance for online media participation), existing privacy law, accessibility guidelines, Guidelines on Information and Advertising Campaigns24 and other legislative and regulatory frameworks.

This approach of enmeshing Government 2.0 accountability at the agency level with all of the business as usual requirements of the Australian Government means that Government 2.0 can be treated as 'business as usual' and a core component of government's interactions with citizens.

23 Government 2.0 Steering Group Terms of Reference – AGIMO – http://agimo.govspace.gov.au/page/government-2-0-steering-group-terms-of-reference/

24 Guidelines on Information and Advertising Campaigns by Australian Government Departments and Agencies – Department of Finance and Deregulation – http://www.finance.gov.au/advertising/guidelines-on-campaign-advertising.html

This in term reduces the perceived risks of engaging through Government 2.0 means and helps normalise its use.

Where existing guidance may struggle to extend to new channels and approaches to engagement, guidance and advice is available through the Steering Group. In this area work has been done regarding the procurement of open source software25 by government agencies and changes made to the Australian Government's default copyright position26 to align it with open licensing;

“11.(b) Consistent with the need for free and open re-use and adaptation, public sector information should be licensed by agencies under the Creative Commons BY standard as the default.”

Work has been underway by the Government to lighten several government regulatory requirements, where this does not reduce accountability, to streamline use of Government 2.0. For example in June 2010 Financial Regulation 10A27 came into effect. This regulation reduces the 'red tape' burden on purchase of certain goods and services, particularly online services, by removing the need for a Regulation 10 approval for contingent liabilities that are “remote or immaterial”.

A Government 2.0 Primer28 was released by AGIMO in December 2010, as was their staff “Social Media 101”29 in July 2010. Both were released under open licenses, permitting reuse and extension by other agencies. These guidance documents support agencies who wish to build their own internal policies and guidance on staff and official use of online channels. Over time they may also assist normalising guidance across agencies.

Lessons learnt

Australia's experience demonstrates that when a solid and well-considered platform, balancing legislative and regulatory management with guidance and support, is devised for Government 2.0 it becomes measurably easier to implement and normalise its adoption and manage the necessary cultural and administrative changes.

The Government 2.0 Taskforce was successfully able to engage and activate public servants through a proactive 'walk the talk' engagement methodology, which provided a broad base of input to inform their recommendations.

This was further assisted by the make-up of the Taskforce membership, more than 50 per cent of members were not from the public sector. The recognition that Government 2.0 was not solely a matter for public servants reflected the community engagement requirements of a successful policy platform in this area.

The process has also illustrated that Government 2.0 leadership must be undertaken at all levels in government, not simply by politicians or senior public servants. By supporting a diverse set of leaders in different aspects of Government 2.0, the Australian Government has fostered the policy

25 Consultation: Guide to Open Source Software – AGIMO blog – http://agimo.govspace.gov.au/2011/03/30/consultation-guide-to-open-source-software/

26 Statement of IP Principles for Australian Government Agencies (PDF 135KB) – Attorney-General's Department – http://www.ag.gov.au/www/agd/rwpattach.nsf/VAP/(9A5D88DBA63D32A661E6369859739356)~Statement+of+IP+Principles+for+Australian+Government+Agencies2.pdf/$file/Statement+of+IP+Principles+for+Australian+Government+Agencies2.pdf

27 Financial Management and Accountability Regulations 1997 – Comlaw – http://www.comlaw.gov.au/Details/F2011C00243

28 The AGIMO Government 2.0 Primer – AGIMO blog – http://agimo.govspace.gov.au/2010/12/02/the-agimo-government-2-0-primer/

29 Social Media 101: A beginner’s guide for Finance employees – AGIMO blog – http://agimo.govspace.gov.au/2010/04/07/social-media-101/

as being inclusive and accelerated the capability for culture change.

At most levels within the Australian Public Service it is possible to find Government 2.0 leaders, meaning that senior executives, middle-managers and staff are all able to identify and interact with leadership at the appropriate level for their activities.

The personal leadership of key individuals across government has helped address engagement fears. Where senior leaders have actively and successfully engaged via services such as Twitter, Facebook and blogs, it has assisted in mitigating perceived risks for peers and subordinates.

Potentially the largest gap in Government 2.0 policy implementation in Australia has been the limited access to specific training and 'sandboxes' where staff can gain exposure to the principles of online engagement and build an active understanding of the tools available and how they may be effectively used within government.

In Victoria the Department of Justice has introduced an internal program of training staff on social media engagement through Yammer, an internal Twitter-like messaging service. This ensures that staff 'learn the ropes' before encountering the public, providing an additional safety net under departmental guidance and policy.

At this time there remains limited opportunities for Australian Government public servants to gain domain-specific experience in Government 2.0 without stepping directly to experimentation. This could make it more difficult to identify and implement successful engagement strategies, or for senior managers to identify the risks most likely to be actualised when considering alternative business cases.

The education gap is being met to some degree through external training and seminar providers, however this remains a less targeted approach to Government 2.0 and may not always be contextually sensitive.

Success measures

The direct success criteria for Australia's Government 2.0 policy have been articulated through the recommendations of the Government 2.0 Taskforce Final Report, as accepted by the government. However these relate to actions, not outcomes and it is unclear whether the Australian Government or others would consider completion of all approved actions as defining the overall success of Government 2.0 in Australia.

The only ongoing performance measure agreed to in the Final Report is for agencies to report their ongoing progress in implementing Government 2.0 as below;

“3.2.1 identify barriers within their organisation which inhibit online engagement and document what they will do to reduce these barriers

3.2.2 identify and document specific projects to make use of social networking and ‘crowdsourcing’ tools and techniques to enhance agency policymaking, implementation and continuous improvement

3.2.3 identify and document specific projects to increase the use of online tools and platforms for internal collaboration within their agency and between agencies that they work with across the public sector.

3.3 The Australian Public Service Commission (APSC) will include in the annual State of the Service Report30 details of agencies’ progress in implementing the above

30 State of the Service reports – Australian Public Service Commission – http://www.apsc.gov.au/stateoftheservice/index.html

recommendations, covering successes, disappointments and lessons learned.”

The first reporting year is 2010-2011 and, as such, this reporting has not yet begun.

The metric of agency activity may prove to be insufficient to fully measure the effectiveness of the Government 2.0 policy. While it will measure specific steps and actions by agencies, it does not necessarily provide measures for audience engagement, efficiency or effectiveness.

It may be more pertinent to consider the Final Report section “The promise of Government 2.0” as defining the aspirational success measures for the policy. These are outlined as follows;

“By embracing Government 2.0 we can:

make our democracy more participatory and informed

improve the quality and responsiveness of services in areas like education, health and environmental management, and at the same time deliver these services with greater agility and efficiency

cultivate and harness the enthusiasm of citizens, letting them more fully contribute to their wellbeing and that of their community

unlock the immense economic and social value of information and other content held by governments to serve as a precompetitive platform for innovation

revitalise our public sector and make government policies and services more responsive to people’s needs and concerns by:

providing government with the tools for a much greater level of community engagement

allowing the users of government services much greater participation in their design and continual improvement

involving communities of interest and practice outside the public sector — which offer unique access to expertise, local knowledge and perspectives — in policy making and delivery

more successfully attracting and retaining bright, enthusiastic citizens to the public service by making their work less hierarchical, more collaborative and more intrinsically rewarding.

While several of these measures are stated in a qualitative fashion, most provide tangible benefits and are readily measurable for example:

make our democracy more participatory and informed Potential measures:

Quantitatively measure public participation by citizens at an agency level by number and frequency of engagement/activity and track over time.

Qualitatively evaluate the level of informed citizenry through statistically significant periodic surveys.

improve the quality and responsiveness of services in areas like education, health and environmental management, and at the same time deliver these services with greater agility and efficiency Potential measures:

Qualitative evaluate citizen views by service area through statistically significant ongoing and periodic surveys.

Construct agency metrics based on response times and cost to measure agility and efficiency.