Better Public Services: Improving interaction with government
Result 9: New Zealand businesses have a one-stop online shop for all government advice and support they need to run and grow their business
Lead Minister: Hon Steven Joyce
Lead CEO: Ministry of Business, Innovation, and Employment, Chief Executive David Smol
Result 10: New Zealanders can complete their transactions with government easily in a digital environment
Lead Minister: Hon Chris Tremain
Lead CEO: Department of Internal Affairs, Chief Executive Colin MacDonald
Result 9: New Zealand businesses have a one-stop online shop for all government advice and support they need to run and grow their business
Why is this important for New Zealand?
The public sector provides significant services to business, and the quality and speed of these services makes a difference to businesses' ability to perform, grow and export.
Ninety per cent of businesses have contact with one or more government agencies at least once a year - that's 409,000 businesses. About three million interactions occur between agencies and small-to-medium sized enterprises every four months.
New technology will provide easier, more cost effective ways for New Zealanders to engage with government. Technology will also contribute to continuous innovation and improvement in the public sector.
How will we know we are achieving this result?
In August 2012, the Result 9 programme released a Result Action Plan. This plan outlined two targets for the programme - to reduce costs and improve services for business.
- Target one: Business costs from dealing with government will reduce by 25% by 2017, through a year-on-year reduction in effort required to work with agencies.
- Target two: Government services to business will have similar key performance ratings as leading private sector firms by July 2017, and businesses will be able to contribute to this through an online feedback system from July 2013.
Reporting against these targets will be done annually, with the first report scheduled for mid-2013.
What are we doing to achieve this result?
Services will be structured around the needs of businesses rather than what works for government agencies. Work is underway to
- Create a shared 'front door' for government services
- Increase digital delivery of services
- Collect information and share it so businesses only have to tell government once.
Government will work on three key areas to improve business services:
- Create services that are designed for business.
- Deliver faster online services
- Achieve better integration in how services are delivered across government.
Initiatives
Some initiatives that government has undertaken that deliver on these results include:
- An overhaul of the online system for applying for and managing patents, which is managed by the Intellectual Property Office of New Zealand. Tasks that previously took days can be done instantly.
Agency: Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment - Inland Revenue launched a new online service for businesses, filing GST through 'myIR' Secure Online Services. By 31 January 2013 more than 70,000 businesses had filed over 150,000 GST returns. (Based on Sept - Jan volumes, 14.5% of GST returns filed).
Agency: Inland Revenue - Significant improvements to the Companies Office website to enable users to obtain relevant information or complete compliance obligations immediately so they can get back to business
Agency: Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment. - Launching Business.govt.nz's ONECheck tool that combines a company name, domain and trade mark search in one place online
Agency: Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment.
Some work that is underway to achieve better public services for business includes:
- A "Trade Single Window" programme to enable parties involved in international trade and transport to submit data that is required by New Zealand border agencies electronically, once, through one entry point
Agency: Customs New Zealand. - Moving Statistics New Zealand's paper-based surveys of businesses online.
Agency: Statistics New Zealand.
Read more Result 9 including the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment Results Action Plan at: www.mbie.govt.nz/what-we-do/better-public-services
Result 10: New Zealanders can complete their transactions with government easily in a digital environment
Why is this important for New Zealand?
People want to deal with government in new and different ways and government needs to respond to that. Agencies need to re-think the way they deliver services, particularly given the public desire to access government services digitally. Customers expect service delivery from the government that is increasingly digital, responsive and personalised.
How will we know we are achieving this result?
Progress towards achieving Result 10 will be monitored using the following key target:
-
An average of 70 per cent of New Zealanders' most common transactions with government will be completed in a digital environment by 2017.
What are we doing to achieve this result?
The Result 10 team is currently working with eight key agencies measuring the digital uptake of transactional services against the target. Representatives of these agencies are working together to shape the direction of digital service initiatives so that people will increasingly choose to use digital channels for their transactions with government.
Priorities include:
Developing a roadmap to re-use service capability across government, including:
Developing and fostering initiatives that deliver customer-centric digital services:
Creating customer-centric services through innovation and partnerships, including:
Developing business cases for improving the utilisation of government's service delivery infrastructure.
Developing insights based on research on what people need:
Read the Department of Internal Affairs Results Action Plan at: www.dia.govt.nz/Better-Public-Services
Measuring Result 10: Second quarter October to December 2012
The Result 10 measure gauges the overall transition of government transactions to the digital environment by measuring the progress of 10 ‘indicator’ transactions across eight agencies. These are regular, high-volume transactional services expected to have consistent levels of demand over the five year period. The information is being collected quarterly from DIA, Police, Customs, IRD, MSD, DOC, MBIE (Immigration) and NZTA.
Positive progress has been made by the eight agencies participating in Result 10 particularly with Internal Affairs’ online renewal of adult passports. Introduced in November 2012, the Department launched the new online passport renewal service. Although this reporting period only captures a snapshot of the first eight weeks of service, during this period approximately 13 per cent of adults receiving a renewed passport applied using the new online service.
The quarter’s result also reflects seasonal fluctuations. These include:
More bookings in the months leading up to summer for a DOC asset such as popular campsites and the Great Walks. These assets are better used in summer and some of them are only bookable online, so online bookings increased in the lead up to, and during, the busy summer season.
Visa applications received electronically are more sensitive to quarterly fluctuations. This is because electronic applications are limited to a few visa types (eg student visas that peak before university or school terms). These visa types represent only a small percentage of the total number of applications received, and any variance appears greater.
Note that ‘Apply for IRD Number’ shows a 0% digital uptake as this service is not currently available online, pending resolving authentication and verification issues (including the confidentiality of IRD numbers). Inland Revenue is working with other agencies on a secure combined approach to online authentication.
A full list of results can be found at www.dia.govt.nz/better-public-services