Focus areas for 2021/22

Initiatives should be cross-agency and clearly align with the outcomes of the Strategy for a Digital Public Service, the Data Roadmap, and the intent of the Public Service Act. 

• Strategy for a Digital Public Service
• Data Roadmap
• Public Service Reforms

Strategy for a Digital Public Service focus areas

• Integrated services for people and business — Multi-agency efforts to collaborate, co-create, design and deliver integrated services centred around people’s needs.
• Leadership, people and culture — Strong leadership to drive public sector collaboration and cultural changes. A unified public service (UPS) and a workforce strategy that reflects future needs and capabilities.
• Foundations — Integrated services enabled through digital foundations that can be used across the public service including:
  • digital architecture for government 
  • unwinding legacy systems
  • reusable data, transactions and rules
  • digital identity
  • government interoperability
  • acceleration of government data, transactions, and business rules
  • development of government API’s (Application Programming Interfaces) and Marketplace.
• Investment — Investment in digital and data that is all-of-government, targeted, and efficient to ensure investment is prioritised, coordinated, and managed.
• New ways of working — Collaboration across a unified public service to deliver outcomes including:
  • mobile workforce
  • digital standards and practices, and
  • digital innovation capacity.

Other criteria

Applications must show:

• how the investment will contribute to New Zealanders’ seamless and integrated experience of, and trust in, public services
• how the initiative demonstrates innovation — this fund is not for business as usual costs
• the level of cross-agency collaboration required as part of the initiative
• benefits to the public service or sector that support transformation, including being able to reuse initiatives or parts of initiatives
• initiative costs, and outline options for sustainable funding if the initiative were to become business as usual.

Applicants should also demonstrate how the:

• initiative will be evaluated
• work aligns with agile values and principles, including how any collaboration benefits the agencies involved
• work will align with relevant standards, for example the New Zealand government Digital Service Design Standard.