Improving Government Efficiency Across Three Departments

The preparation of Possible Parliamentary Questions (PPQ) and Public Accounts and Estimates Committee (PAEC) briefs can be resource intensive and time consuming. Portable were engaged, initially by DEDJTR and then DPC and DHHS, to make this system more user-friendly, efficient and effective.

Approach

This project involved three separate government departments, each with their own unique PPQ and PAEC systems and requirements. Our team worked with each department independently to address their needs, while working towards the goal of a single codebase that provides the flexibility required. This is an ongoing project and we are continuously improving each respective system through sprints and workshops.

We worked with each department to pinpoint, prioritise and address issues that for our team to resolve. Throughout this process we conducted rigorous quality assurance and User Acceptance Testing processes that allowed us to maintain the stability of the application.

We automated their build and migrated it into our standard tool chain so that the code base was consistent, and could be developed independently. This reduces the possible variables that can impact the final product.

To expand the existing DEDJETR setup into DHHS and DPC we used infrastructure as code, enabling us to bring up two identical sets of infrastructure. This allowed us to meet the regulated security needs High Availability, Disaster Recovery, Scalability, Performance Maintenance and other reporting as required of the department.

Results

Portable developed a user-friendly digital platform to allow staff to write, edit and approve these briefs more efficiently and effectively.

A secure and manageable system that is protected through application level access controls.

DevOps environment for DHHS and DPC and an updated DevOps for DEDJTR.

Ongoing maintenance and support for the three departments.

This is an ongoing project and we continue to support each department. Over time, we would like to see this system rolled out across other Victorian Government departments, with the ultimate goal of having an entirely paperless system.

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