Policy statement

Scope

This policy applies to all NSW Government agencies. It defines:

• what State Digital Assets (SDAs) are and why NSW Government needs them
• how SDAs are agreed that they “must” or “should” be used
• how agencies can request an exemption to using SDAs
• the support available and requirements for SDA owners
• how SDAs are governed, assured, and reported.

The creation of this policy has been endorsed by the ICT and Digital Leadership Group (IDLG) and the Digital Transformation Board (DTB), which are whole of government governance and advisory bodies for NSW Government. The Digital Strategy, Investment and Assurance (DSIA) Branch of Digital NSW in the Department of Customer Service (DCS) owns this policy, and all associated processes, templates and outputs needed to implement the policy. Future amendments and changes to this policy will be presented to the IDLG and DTB for endorsement.

Roles, purpose and beneficiaries

• For users of SDAs: understand how the decision is made that a State Digital Asset must or should be used, and how to request an exemption.
• For owners of SDAs: understand the support available and responsibilities when your digital solution has been determined to be a Core or Common State Digital Asset.
• For decision makers: understand the process to identify, prioritise, and make decisions on what digital assets must or should be used.

What are State Digital Assets?

SDAs are digital solutions (encompassing applications, technology infrastructure and data) used by more than one NSW Government agency and are endorsed to be:

• Core SDAs: digital solutions that must be used by agencies, as endorsed by the ICT and Digital Leadership Group (IDLG) and the Digital Transformation Board (DTB). Over time, the Core SDA becomes the single digital solution used by agencies.
• Common SDAs: digital solutions that should be used by agencies, as endorsed by IDLG. Over time, the number of solutions in NSW Government reduce to an agreed set of options.

There are a variety of ways to use SDAs. SDAs can provide data to other digital solutions (e.g., geospatial or customer information), actual functionality (e.g., payments, notifications) or be solutions that agencies log in to and use (e.g., asset management). In most cases, SDAs that provide data or functionality are the most feasible for reuse. SDAs have a single owner, are supported by policy, standards, and data sharing agreements ensuring privacy, security, and ethics.

What are not State Digital Assets

• Commercial contracts and standards
• Developer libraries and frameworks
• Solutions specific to a single agency
• Digital solutions not endorsed as being either Core (by IDLG and DTB) or Common (by IDLG).

Why NSW Government needs State Digital Assets

Reuse of digital assets is required to:

• achieve seamless customer experiences by providing our customers with high quality and consistent products, platforms, or services across digital channels, regardless of the government agency.
• increase public sector productivity via efficiencies of inter-agency interoperability, data sharing, workflows, technology reuse, and resilience of ICT infrastructure.
• enable industry to be more productive via the reuse of digital solutions related to regulation, innovation, and the digitisation of services between the public and private sector.