SA Government CIO talks ‘common site’ vision

South Australia is now adopting a simpler, more integration approach to its Web sites similar to the UK model, according to state government CIO Andrew Mills.

Mills was in Sydney this week to speak at the CeBIT conference where he and program manager of the SA government Web site, Rita McPhail, shared their experiences in shifting to an interactive approach for government Web portals.

“I think we’re going from a traditional model to a dialogue style. We’re going from online government to interactive government and that is the challenge,” Mills said.

Mills later told CIO the SA government’s strategy is called “ask just once”, which refers to the level of service customers expect.

“It’s quite a different way of delivering government information online. It’s about going from a multiple Web site approach to a single site for government. We’re basically following a model used by the UK government. Now Queensland is doing the same thing,” he said.

Rita McPhail elaborated on the impact of the single site approach.

“It’s been a real paradigm shift for us in the state when we try to implement the model because what it means is, rather than each customer having to understand which agency provides the service, it’s about creating a single entry point where no matter what they are looking for, they’ll find all of the information across government that’s being developed across topics.”