Building Resilience Through Digitisation

We must invest in digital infrastructure to build resilience against disasters. By Victor Dominello.

Resilience is the ability to recover quickly from difficulties.

Arguably the most important word in this sentence is “quickly”. A speedy recovery demands a rapid response.

In NSW our response to COVID has been data driven and rapid. 

Within the first 48 hours we set up a unit at the heart of the State Emergency Operations Centre (SEOC) to bring together critical data sets to help us model mobility.

This was done with privacy and security settings at the forefront - the data both aggregated and anonymised.   

Mobility, particularly in the early stages, was a strong proxy for spread. 

A better understanding of mobility enabled us to have a more targeted, quicker and agile response when it came to essential health interventions and communications.

For instance, targeting COVID pop-up testing clinics in potential hot-spot areas or laser focussing additional information campaigns to where they were most needed - or even where the mobility data suggested they would be needed next.   

We were the first State to open up data to the public relating to testing, infection numbers and hotspots. Data of this kind builds trust and it empowers the public to see what is happening in particular locations so that they can make informed decisions.

NSW was first to introduce a text messaging service for people who tested negative. Imagine going to get tested and then waiting for days, if not weeks, to be notified of your result.

You would be self-isolating from home, anxiously waiting for the test results. The simple truth is that over 98 percent of people test negative. Therefore the wait causes unnecessary angst. It also hurts productivity as people can't go to work.

Worst of all it is an appalling experience; a recipe for distrust of the service and ultimately the government that delivers it. 

Once people start distrusting the government, then compliance with Public Health Orders becomes increasingly problematic.

The agility of the NSW response didn’t begin six months ago, but five years ago when I created the Data Analytics Centre. This silo-busting, cross-government collaboration meant the data architecture and, just as importantly the culture, were already in place to work together as we fight this evil pandemic.    

In tandem with the tremendous front door to government - Service NSW - it has allowed us to fast track a number of vital initiatives to help the people of our State. 

It ensured we were able to set up an application process for $10k and $3k business grants which delivered money into bank accounts inside a couple of days. It’s not lost on anyone how important the agility of that response was through the existing Service NSW Business profile.   

We created industry specific COVID-safe plans and registered businesses as COVID-safe seamlessly through nsw.gov.au. Not only did this in turn deliver essential data as we opened the State back up, but offered businesses doing it tough access to the best advice and practice to reopen in the current almost unprecedented environment.      

The border permit system was set up from scratch inside 72 hours - this sort of process has typically taken years to create and would have been impossible if the framework to deliver customer-focussed processes hadn’t been created through Service NSW.    

And the latest solution to a new-reality problem is the Service NSW QR code allowing you to sign into a pub or club without fear your data is being shared overseas or with marketing companies. 

This new service checks the data against your Service NSW account, only keeps it for 28 days and means contact tracing can be executed by the Health Department immediately. 

It should be noted, in terms of building resilience, digital transformation also means the end of legacy systems and manual processes which are the most vulnerable when it comes to cyber attacks.    

We still have a road ahead of us when it comes to Covid. As we have seen in Victoria, there is always a risk of a second or third wave. 

Going digital does not eliminate human error. Nor does it eliminate willful non-compliance. But it does give us the best chance of responding both with speed and with accuracy and therefore recovering as quickly as possible.

Disasters are an unfortunate constant. The devastating droughts of ancient Egypt. The great fire of Rome. The Black Plague. The COVID-19 pandemic. The imperative to act quickly remains unchanged. But the metric of quick has dramatically changed.

Real-time is twenty-first century time. Our resilience infrastructure must be fast and must be agile.  The only medium capable of delivering against these measures is digital.

Whether it's the bushfire season approaching or heaven forbid the next pandemic, we must continue to invest in and transform to digital. It will not only create jobs, it will save lives.

Victor Dominello is the NSW Minister for Customer Service.

For more on this topic, you can also watch the Minister’s Watercooler interview with Nick Cater.