The NSW Treasurer announced that the government is investing an additional $500 million to the Digital Restart Fund. We have prepared the below FAQs to help you understand what it means for you.
What are the details?
The $500 million additional investment will be made into the DRF over three years from FY 21/22 in addition to the $1.6 billion funding for the DRF that commenced in FY20/21.
How will the new funding be allocated to projects?
We have a list of 24 projects that have already been put into the pipeline by the Delivery and Performance Committee. To confirm if your project is on this pipeline, or to discuss changing the priority of your project, you can contact your department’s representative below.
If your project is not currently on this pipeline, we will be running another prioritisation process over the coming months. This means that we will be working with you to determine what are your most important strategic projects, how they can be prioritised against others in the sector and how they stack up against our criteria. We've developed an online tool to make it easier for departments to submit their projects and manage the prioritisation.
While we have a prioritisation process and criteria that we developed last year, remember we’re looking for projects that meet the key strategic drivers of the fund including improving customer experience, stimulating the economy, faster delivery of solutions and digital collaboration. Previously DRF-funded seed projects will also be eligible to apply for scale funding.
Additional money has been reserved to build cyber security capability in small and independent agencies. Agencies that have already accessed funding for cyber security projects will not be eligible for additional budget from the fund.
How can I apply for funding?
The first step is to get your project into the pipeline. To do this, agencies need to work with your department DRF representatives, who will input the DRF pipeline requests on your behalf through the online pipeline prioritisation portal. Your department representative has received training on using this tool.
After projects have been submitted, the pipeline will still need to be endorsed by the Digital Restart Fund Steering Committee and the Delivery and Performance Committee, before projects can then prepare and submit business cases.
We’ll be sending out information every step of the way. If there’s anything that you need more help read our how to apply page or reach out to us at digital.restart.fund@customerservice.nsw.gov.au.
Department Representatives
Education: Chris Bloom
Health (eHealth NSW): Graham Baum
Transport: Penny Lim
Treasury: Tracy Wilson
DPC: Jacqueline Parker
DPIE: Prajwal Subedi
Regional: George Argy
Stronger Communities: Justin Paine
DCS: Daniela Polit