WA’s Do it online portal lists few of the services available from agency websites. This understates the number that are online and potentially gives a mistaken impression of the range of online services people can access online. For example, people can apply for a WA Seniors Card online via the agency website but not Do It Online. The portal lists 85 services, less than a quarter of the 440 on Queensland’s service portal.
Many government services available online in other states and territories are not online in WA. For example, people can apply for a birth certificate or replacement driver’s licence online in most states but in WA applications must be by post or in person. WA’s cost recovery based fee of $47 for a birth certificate and $36 for a replacement driver licence might be reduced substantially if they were online. Fees for the same services online in Victoria, for example, are $31 and $22.60 respectively.
In the absence of government priority and leadership, not all of the agencies have given online services a high priority and competing needs and internal barriers such as legacy systems have inhibited progress. The Website Governance Framework provides basic compliance requirements but is not designed to drive improvement in online services.
Read more – Government online service delivery lags behind best practice
The Synergy, Landgate and WA Police websites have a strong customer focus. They encourage visitors to use online services by addressing them in a personal way to identify their needs and direct them to the right location. Customer-focused websites make it more likely that customers will choose to use an online transaction rather than a more expensive manual one.
None of the 5 agencies delivers online all the services it could, despite the technology being available for many years. As a result, agencies have overlooked potential efficiencies. Many services still depend on customers downloading forms and submitting them manually to the agency. Examples include work safety notifications, changes of address and applying for a record of traffic infringements.
A small number of services are unlikely to move online in the near future because it would not be cost effective. For example, Landgate may continue using a manual form Convert Common Property Land to Individual Ownership by Resolution because demand does not warrant creating an online process to manage it.
Read more – Poor customer focus of agency websites potentially affects online services
All 5 agencies forecast costs and savings in business cases for moving specific services online. Only Synergy and Landgate monitored actual costs and benefits. Synergy showed savings of $815,000 in 2014-15. Landgate has made savings of $12 million in 2015-16. Failure to monitor costs reduces the information available for agencies to use in deciding to move services online and addressing barriers to the transition. With the exception of these 2 agencies, systems did not enable cost comparisons of different service delivery methods.
Read more – Only 2 of the 5 agencies monitor the costs and benefits of online service delivery