myGov lacks proper funding, review finds

The myGov platform is under-funded, causing it to “fall well short” of serving as the “primary digital front door to government” for Australian citizens that it was long promised to be.

A review and audit [pdf] set up by the government last year found myGov has been let down by uneven funding and by a lack of cross-portfolio thinking when it comes to government service delivery.

The review asks the government to commit at least $138 million a year to myGov, for which the platform’s overseers, Services Australia, would need to commit to a certain number of enhancements.

myGov has had this level of funding over the past two financial years, but $100 million a year of that will not continue beyond mid-2023.

“The need to re-engage with the budget process every two years hinders long-term planning and involves high levels of wasted bureaucratic time and effort,” the review found.

“Opportunistic funding bursts, without ongoing funding certainty, provide an unsustainable basis for developing myGov as a critical element of national service delivery infrastructure.”

The review panel warned that if the enhancement funding is discontinued beyond mid-2023, the benefits of work over the past two years could also evaporate.

“Recent investment will deliver some ongoing benefits for Australians, but without a commitment to long-term investment in developing the complementary capabilities (such as digital wallets) and new services (such as passport applications), the risk is that myGov will become an empty shell,” the panel said.

The review panel also recommended the government set up a replica of NSW’s digital restart fund that could be tapped by agencies wanting to develop online services that are accessed through myGov.

Services mindset

The panel wants Services Australia to take a more active role in getting more services added to myGov.

“As it stands, myGov is a long way from being seen as the digital delivery partner of choice it needs to be by other agencies,” the review found.

“Government needs to chart a delicate course between insisting agencies engage with myGov more actively (to deliver value to Australians) and ensuring myGov provides the support needed to encourage them to do so.

“Three major changes are needed. First, myGov’s platform operating model needs to be built around the needs of government agencies. 

“Second, myGov needs to increase the ‘speed-to-market’ of new features and improvements to avoid being seen as ‘second in class’. 

“Third, and most importantly, myGov needs to step up the support they give other agencies to engage with and onboard to myGov. 

“myGov needs to reduce the costs agencies face in becoming ‘members’ of myGov and work with them as clients and partners, rather than applicants.”

The panel asked Services Australia to help “government agencies [to] easily prototype, test integrations, and go live with platform capabilities”, and offer a dedicated support team, high quality public documentation and integration libraries.

User experience

The panel was concerned that the myGov user experience, while vastly improved courtesy of recent funding injections, is still problematic.

For example, it said that in the first half of 2022, “more than 300,000 calls were made to the myGov help desk seeking help to sign-in or create an account.”

“This is too high,” the panel stated.

“Signing in to myGov should be quick and simple (and preferably via a digital identity) and so should account management.”

In addition, about 40 percent of calls to the myGov helpdesk are about linking to member agency services.

The panel was also critical of the longstanding policy where if a customer is locked out of their account - such as losing their mobile number tied to multi-factor authentication - the only solution is to start over.

The myGov platform currently has “more than 4 million dormant accounts” because of this.

The panel was also concerned that the ability to create multiple accounts for a single person opened opportunities for fraud, if the fraudster had access to certain types of personal information.

“A fraudster can create one or more myGov accounts in respect of another individual simply because the fraudster has detailed information about that other individual,” it wrote.

“This serious risk needs to be addressed.”

This is a developing story. iTnews will publish more on the review this afternoon.