Mission 2
Use digital to improve service delivery, support the local economy and drive productivity.
Our goals
Digital can improve services for the NSW community and drive innovation in government and the local economy. Emerging technology such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) has the potential to increase productivity and deliver operational efficiencies. To realise these benefits the NSW Government must balance innovation and risk.
The NSW Government has led the way in safe and responsible use of AI with the creation of the NSW Artificial Intelligence Assessment Framework. We’ve embraced digital principles such as human-centred design to make sure we’re building products that meet the needs and expectations of the people of NSW. By adopting iterative investment models for digital products and services, we’ve been able to test and scale projects in a more flexible and responsive way. This reduces delivery risk and improves the time taken to reach an outcome. To support this, we’re incorporating digital ways of working into our workforce, including Agile methodologies and digital tooling such as project management, data analysis and communication tools.
The NSW Government will equip the people of NSW to navigate the opportunities and risks that a rapidly changing digital world brings, including addressing the expected shortfall of 85,000 digital workers in NSW by 2030.⁴
We’re working and collaborating through partnerships with industry, academia, small businesses and communities to enhance local capabilities, learn from experts and support local innovation, and the economy.
To make sure we deliver better digital outcomes, we will:
2A: Use Artificial Intelligence in a safe, ethical and responsible way
2B: Invest in the digitalisation of government services, systems and processes
2C: Partner with industry and academia to innovate, explore and solve complex digital challenges
2D: Help create a NSW workforce ready for the future of digital
How we'll get there
2A: Use Artificial Intelligence in a safe, ethical and responsible way
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is transforming government services, increasing productivity and driving economic growth. To realise these benefits, we must develop public trust in AI by making sure its use in government is safe, ethical and transparent.
AI is already used to make NSW communities safer. For example, AI is used in emergency response for bushfires. We’ve built tools to manage the safe and responsible use of AI in schools to take burdens off our teachers. We’re also using AI to reduce administration, to improve processing times and to improve monitoring of the environment through smart sensors.
NSW is a leader in the safe and responsible use of AI with a pioneering assurance framework. In response to rapid developments in AI (such as Generative AI), both the NSW Digital Assurance Framework and the NSW AI Assessment Framework have been updated to improve AI risk management.
Agencies can self-assess their AI projects using the NSW AI Assessment Framework, with high-risk projects sent to the AI Review Committee for expert advice. Our goal is to collaborate with expert partners so that NSW legislative and regulatory frameworks remain fit for purpose and can deal with the opportunities and challenges that emerging AI creates.
23. Update the NSW AI Strategy
24. Continue building a comprehensive and structured approach to ensuring the safe and responsible use of AI
25. Develop a roadmap for AI priorities
26. Consider whether NSW legislation and regulations are fit for purpose to effectively mitigate risks and manage harms associated with AI
27. Create a public register of all high-risk AI use cases in NSW to increase transparency and build trust
28. Continue trials and expansion of NSW Government’s wider AI in NSW Planning package
- Supporting customer enquiries through the Service NSW Virtual Assistant, which uses a form of chatbot AI to understand and interpret customer requests.
- Better oversight of NSW’s ICT and digital investments through the implementation of the Digital Assurance Framework, which applies to projects over $5 million and Digital Restart Fund projects.
- Exploring how AI can help NSW councils create workflow efficiencies in the local development application (DA) process through initiatives such as the AI Early Adopter Grant Program. Grants support the improved efficiency of DA processing, an improved user experience during processing and help to achieve annual dwelling targets in NSW.
- Establishing ethical principles for the use of AI to support the safe and responsible use of AI by public servants and promote trust and transparency through compliance reporting.
- Promoting ongoing collaboration across state, territory and federal governments to share knowledge, adopt standards and advocate for best practice management of AI. For example, working with the Australian Government on the National framework for the assurance of artificial intelligence in government to guard against the common harms AI could pose to people.
- Exploring the potential of AI in enhancing educational experiences while prioritising safety, security and ethical use through trialling NSWEduChat. This is a purpose-built generative AI tool designed by the NSW Department of Education.
- Speeding up the process of locating information in policy and procedure documents for school staff through trialling the NSWEduChat Policy Finder. This AI-driven tool answers queries by extracting relevant content from the documents and directing users to the original sources. The policy finder aims to enhance efficiency and support informed decision-making among school staff by reducing the time and effort required to find specific policy details.
2B: Invest in the digitalisation of government services, systems and processes
To be able to maintain and respond to the needs of our community, the NSW Government needs to continue to invest in improving and modernising digital government services. This requires modern, agile approaches to investment through funding shorter, iterative development cycles. This allows projects to continually adapt to community needs and respond to ongoing feedback, enabling the NSW Government to swiftly meet changing demands and deliver more user-centric digital services.
Equally, projects and systems that underpin critical government services may require a longer-term, more sustainable approach to funding. By treating critical government systems as Digital Infrastructure and investing carefully to maintain systems over a longer period, the NSW Government is increasing efficiency, promoting system reuse across NSW agencies and reducing wasted expenditure.
18. Adopt consistent categorisation of spend in ICT, data and digital across government to coordinate digital investment in NSW
19. Develop an all of government digital investment pipeline and supporting framework to ensure ongoing alignment of digital funding proposals
20. Explore planning and funding models to support long term investment in State Digital Assets
22. Support government priorities of accelerating housing supply and improving productivity through continued digital transformation
- NSW has reduced the time taken to deliver on ICT projects and the cost of these projects by taking a modern, agile investment approach. The tranche funding model applied under the Digital Restart Fund supports phased investment in digital projects to test and scale initiatives, which drives more efficient delivery and better investment outcomes aligned to government priority areas.
- Helping NSW agencies deliver successful digital projects through Digital Assurance. This assists teams to deliver projects on time and on budget, aligns digital investments with all of government priorities, and enhances transparency and accountability.
- Consolidating multiple finance and technology systems to simplify government’s corporate and shared service system through the Process and Technology Harmonisation (PaTH) program.
- Driving productivity and digital uplift across the infrastructure sector with the Infrastructure Digitalisation Roadmap. This roadmap sets out a framework to achieve adoption and application of digital technology through the entire infrastructure lifecycle.
2C: Partner with industry and academia to innovate, explore and solve complex digital challenges
In a fast-moving digital world, it’s important to collaborate and partner with communities, businesses, industry and academia. Through these partnerships, we can explore new opportunities, foster innovation and maintain best practices. This is especially important for emerging technologies such as AI.
We engage partners through publishing guidelines and tools for our communities and businesses to use. We seek feedback on projects and policies as they’re developed through workshops and surveys in the community. We foster innovation through our technology hubs, grants, internships and partnership programs. This collaboration benefits growth and uplift in our economy.
These partnerships also help the NSW Government unlock new opportunities to improve our services and help our communities. Through these ongoing collaborations, we can continue to learn and evolve and remain a global leader in the digital environment.
- Creating the $45 million Smart Places Acceleration Program which has generated new partnerships between the NSW Government, councils, property owners, joint organisations, industry and the innovation sector.
- Uncovering leading edge technology and data solutions through Smart City Innovation Challenges has helped find innovative smart technology solutions to improve places and outcomes for communities.
- Developing and testing network sensing technology through Innovative Flood and Storm Intelligence Sensing. The NSW State Emergency Service (SES) has partnered with researchers from the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) and TPG Telecom to extract localised weather information including rainfall, water levels and river flows using signals transmitted on the communications network.
- Supporting NSW agencies to use innovation procurement pathways to find new ways to test and buy solutions to address the problems people face in NSW.
- Enabling councils and the market to refine and scale new technology available from the AI Solutions Panel. Through the Early Adopter Grant Program, NSW councils can improve assessment times at the pre-lodgement stage of the development application (DA) process.
2D: Help create a NSW workforce ready for the future of digital
Digital is changing the way we work and the skills people need to engage in the NSW workforce. We want people in our communities to be able to participate online and keep our economy thriving.
Developing a future-ready workforce is crucial in accelerating the economic growth of NSW and ensuring the state remains competitive. Having a thriving digital workforce means we can continue to deliver digital transformation and remain safe and responsible online.
In NSW, there is a projected shortage of 85,000 digital workers by 2030⁴. This growing gap comes as a result of rapid changes in digital technology and the increasing demand for digital skills. It’s important for the NSW Government to help address this gap in collaboration with our industry and academic partners.
21. Continue cross-sector collaboration to address projected skill shortage of 85,000 digital workers in NSW by 2030
- Establishing the NSW Digital Skills and Workforce Compact 2023-25 Action Plan led by NSW Education in collaboration with industry, education and training. The NSW Digital Compact is doing this through 8 initiatives including:
- changing perceptions of digital careers
- increasing retention in tertiary digital education courses
- increasing diversity in the digital industry
- expanding digital traineeship pathways
- scaling reskilling programs
- increasing connections between industry and digital education programs
- using government levers to support digital skills and capability uplift.
- Offering targeted short courses and micro credentials in partnership with TAFE NSW to provide focused training on specific, in-demand digital skills.
- Offering 11 digital and Information and Communications Technology (ICT) related qualifications on the NSW Skills List. These are government-subsidised and fee-free under traineeship pathways until June 2025, and fee-free for other equity and priority groups.
Make digital services accessible, inclusive and connected for everyone in NSW
Underpin trust in government through reliable, stable digital services and sustainable Digital Infrastructure
Keep NSW safe and resilient during emergencies online and in-person
Uplift digital capability in the public sector workforce