Meet the federal government finalists in the 2022 iTnews Benchmark Awards

In 2020 and 2021, federal government agencies dealt with everything from ERP upgrades to projects to improve the myGov platform, and the streamlining of welfare payment systems.

Today, we announce the three federal government IT and digital projects which are finalists in the 2022 iTnews Benchmark Awards:

• Australia Post’s telecommunications transformation program
• Work led by Services Australia to provide proof of COVID-19 vaccination for everyday people in Australia; and
• The digital transformation of the Clean Energy Regulator.

The projects are featured in the latest in our series of mini-documentaries about the 2022 iTnews Benchmark Awards finalists.

Australia Post’s telecommunications transformation program

With at least 4000 sites, Australia Post lays claim to having the largest physical retail presence in the nation. Telecommunications are critical to its operations, which is why Australia Post spent the last few years working on the largest overhaul in its history. 

From mid-2019 to late 2021, connectivity to its sites was uplifted and collaboration tools were deployed for 14,000 staff. Meanwhile, standardised core routing workforce management analytics and reporting were among the systems deployed at contact centres for nearly 2000 staff. 

Australia Post needed to do all this during the pandemic and without interrupting services to the public.

Services Australia’s work to provide proof of Covid-19 vaccination for citizens

Services Australia initially made Covid-19 digital vaccination certificates available via myGov, the Express Plus Medicare App and My Health Record.

The project also involved significant upgrades to technical infrastructure and the Australian immunisation register.

A key achievement was making it possible for people to add their digital certificate to Covid-19 check-in apps. Services Australia was given weeks to make this possible and worked with the states and territories and other Commonwealth agencies to do so.

More than 81 million Covid-19 digital certificates have been accessed by more than 15 million people, reports Services Australia. Millions of individuals have also added their Covid-19 digital certificates to their check-in app.

Digital transformation of the Clean Energy Regulator

The Clean Energy Regulator administers national greenhouse and energy reporting schemes, targets, and funds. This work depends on digital systems and the regulator has been involved in a significant project to improve the agency's ability to adapt to the evolving, renewable energy sector and climate change policy.

In 2020 the agency completed a nine-month transition of all of its data centre compute infrastructure to Microsoft Azure – a significant step for a federal agency with a protected classification, according to the regulator.

It also introduced agile ways of working and brought the organisation into line with hybrid working practices by giving its workforce the ability to work in the cloud using Microsoft365.

It has also been building eCarbon, a single place for government sector participants, industry and community, to transact with a regulator.

Through reuse of microservices, the agency hopes to make it easier to add new services and standardise the way stakeholders engage with it across its schemes and registries.

Watch the mini-documentary series

We thank every organisation that entered the federal government award category – those nominees included important projects by the public and industry. This was a tightly contested category with many quality entries.

Watch the rest of the mini-documentaries about the 2022 iTnews Benchmark Awards finalists’ projects here throughout early April.

On June 15, the award winners will be announced at a ceremony and dinner hosted by KPMG in Barangaroo, Sydney.

Thank you to Appian for sponsoring the Best Federal Government Project Award.