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Government 5.0: the future of public services.
The Chair in Digital Economy, Australia.

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Report-Government-5.0.pdf
 Government 5.0
The future of public services

August 2019

CRICOS 00213J
The future of public services 1
About the authors
Prof. Marek Kowalkiewicz is an academic and industry leader
with extensive global experience in conducting academically sound
research, co-innovating with industry and university partners, and
delivering innovative products to the market. Currently, as Professor
and head of Chair in Digital Economy, as well as leader of the
Embracing Digital Age research theme, he leads the digital research
agenda of Queensland University of Technology in Australia. Prior to
joining QUT, Marek was based in Silicon Valley where he was Senior
Director of Products and Innovation at SAP. He has 13 patents and
is a frequent keynote speaker, presenting to global government and
corporate audiences.

Dr Paula Dootson is a Senior Lecturer in the Chair in Digital Economy

at the QUT Business School. In this role, Paula is researching
how organisations transition through the digital economy and how
consumers respond to changes in the market, which sometimes result
in deviant or non-compliant behaviour. Paula manages a contemporary
research portfolio and converts industry driven opportunities into
research outcomes of global relevance. Her research focuses on
providing businesses and policymakers with evidence-based solutions
to real world problems. Paula is published in high quality marketing,
management, and law journals and has brought in over $2.5 million in
research funding from industry and government.

The Chair in Digital Economy, founded by QUT, Queensland Government, Brisbane Marketing,
and PwC, provides industry-relevant, academically grounded research to help organisations
reimagine their value in the digital economy.

Disclaimer:
This publication does not necessarily reflect the views of the founding partners of the QUT Chair
in Digital Economy, including PwC, Brisbane City Council, or the Queensland Government.

Join our online community at www.chairdigitaleconomy.com.au or on Twitter @chairdigeconomy

2 Government 5.0
Contents

Introduction��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 6

Government 1.0: Emergence����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 7

Government 2.0: Industrialising������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 8

Government 3.0: Automation����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 9

Government 4.0: Digitalisation������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 10

Government 5.0: Personalisation����������������������������������������������������������������������������������11

The six trends impacting Government 5.0�������������������������������������������������������������������������� 12

Digital sanitisation�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 13

Right to explanation����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 14

The demise of industries���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 16

Entropy on the rise������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 17

Digital twinning������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 19

The trust paradox��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 20

Conclusion�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 22

References������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 23

To reference this report: Kowalkiewicz, M. and Dootson, P. (2019). Government 5.0: the
future of public services. Brisbane: QUT Chair in Digital Economy.

The QUT Chair in Digital Economy would like to thank their local, state, and federal government
project partners, for which the insights presented in this report would not be possible. We would
like to make special mention to Liquid Interactive, their contribution to the Innovation Sprints has
been invaluable.

The future of public services 33

 Government 5.0
In the public sector, the future of government services goes well beyond
Major trends and recommended responses
citizen centric services, or whole-of-government approaches to service
delivery and gravitates toward whole-of-life service delivery. Understanding
the citizen model, not through a government lens, but holistically, is the
focus. In 5.0, public service providers are asking where they can fit in their
customers’ lives, rather than the other way around of “where do customers
Digital Right to
fit in providers’ processes”. The focus is on genuinely understanding SOCIAL
Sanitisation Explanation
customers (not just citizens!) of the public sector, ensuring the wellbeing of TRENDS
Human face of Human
the customers, and delivering seamless interactions with the public sector.
the machine checksum

The evolution of government services

EMERGENCE
Individual
1.0
service
delivery
INDUSTRIALISING Demise of Entropy on the
Industries BUSINESS Rise
Scaling service TRENDS
2.0 delivery Department of Loonshot
(volume/variety) life events incubation

AUTOMATION
Efficient
service 3.0
delivery
DIGITALISATION
Whole-of- Digital Twinning Trust Paradox
government DIGITAL
4.0 Mass policy TRENDS Deliver on the
service simulation ART of digital*
delivery
PERSONALISATION
Whole-of-
life
service 5.0
delivery
*ART of Digital: ASPIRATIONAL, RESPONSIBLE, TRUSTED

4 Government 5.0 The future of public services 5

Introduction
The digital transformation undertaken in the Based on these challenges and changing
private sector has exceeded the pace of social expectations of government services,
transformation of government-citizen service opportunities emerge for whole-of-life service
delivery and associated policymaking (OECD delivery, using methods such as:
OPSI and MBRCGI, 2019). With increasing
pressure to deliver solutions for complex • innovation sprints (a rapid method
social problems like climate change, poverty, for developing solutions to wicked
migration, and inequality, and the decreasing problems),
economic resources, governments are
• citizen-controlled digital identity
increasingly expected to do more with less.
solutions (addressing some challenges
of managing sensitive data),
Public sector organisations have high potential
for initiating and delivering transformational • regulatory sandboxes (a place to allow
digital initiatives. The abundance of data, as well for the testing of new approaches),
as experience in large scale transformational • rules as code (helping regain trust
projects, should make digital transformation through equitable treatment), and
easy. However, there are challenges posed
• new ways of measuring the impact of
by large-scale digital transformation projects:
government services (to ensure the
a need for a holistic perspective, challenges
right direction of digital transformation).
in managing sensitive data, and a tendency
to stick to well-known approaches rather In this report, we capture the evolution of
than experimenting with new ones. Failing to government services and predict a possible
overcome these challenges may lead to failed future direction of their evolution. For simplicity,
or misdirected digital transformation initiatives. we capture these under labels “Government
1.0” to “Government 5.0”. We identify six major
While some countries assess the success social, business, and digital trends shaping
of technology through the lens of citizen citizen experiences and service delivery of the
wellbeing, such as New Zealand’s 2019 future, and offer recommendations to address
Wellbeing Budget, listing Thriving in the Digital these trends to enable value resilience1 in a
Age as one of its five key areas (NZ Treasury, Government 5.0 world.
2019), other countries are using technology
for surveillance and control of its citizens (such
as China’s social credit system) (Xu & Xiao,
2018), which has seen an erosion of trust in
institutions (Edelman, 2019). An absence
of trust then has an impact on economic
1 The concept of revenue resilience, well-known
performance (Kamers, 2015).
in the business world, can be applied in government
scenarios, with a focus on value resilience as well as
relevance resilience, instead of pure revenue resilience.
6 Government 5.0
Evolution of government services
While the progression of public services in early 2019, the Reserve Bank of India
seems to be moving at a slower pace than launched an ombudsman service for digital
other sectors, it would be misleading to payments (Bhakta, 2019), a move in response
assume that government service delivery to a dramatic growth in cashless transactions
does not evolve. The QUT Chair in Digital in India, due to the introduction of Unified
Economy team (CDE) has analysed several Payments Interface. Public service providers
sectors and digital economy phenomena to recognise the uniqueness of the services
apply a “5.0” framework (see our reports on they can offer and start to focus on providing
retail (Kowalkiewicz, Rosemann & Dootson, consistent access to them.
2017), health (Kowalkiewicz, 2017a), and
employment (Kowalkiewicz and Dootson, While selective, these individual services pave
2019)). Here, we apply this framework to the a way for new value propositions in the public
government sector.

Evolution 1.0 2.0 3.0 4.0 5.0

Title EMERGENCE INDUSTRIALISING AUTOMATION DIGITALISATION PERSONALISATION

Individual Scaling service Efficient Whole-of- Whole-of-Life

Description service delivery service government service
delivery (volume/variety) delivery service delivery delivery

Focus Service Value Operating Business Citizen

access chain model model model

KPI Quality Equitability Practicality Connectivity Desirability

Enablers Service Operating officers Operating Cross- Cross-government

designers (volume) officers department teams teams and
Service designers Whole-of- partnerships
(variety) government
experience
designers

Government 1.0: Emergence sector. Service design teams are important

in deploying such new services, focusing
In Government 1.0, new individual services on ensuring proper access to the services,
are being offered. This often follows a through various channels, and quality of
particular social need, triggered by social, experience for service users.
business, or digital trends. For instance,
The future of public services 7
Government 2.0: Industrialising Examples of QUT Chair in Digital Economy
projects
In Government 2.0, the focus shifts toward
creating an ecosystem of partners to allow for
Queensland Government,
scaling the volume and variety of services.
Department of Communities
Scaling the volume allows the public sector
Youth homelessness
to reach higher numbers of service users
cost effectively. This may require partnering This project explored the economic
with other organisations to jointly deliver the value of proactively addressing youth
homelessness.
services or developing efficient internal service
delivery models (Deloitte, 2015). The Digital We designed a mobile-first platform that
Brisbane 2.0 strategy provides examples of a uses a chat-interface to quickly guide the
user towards a set of services that best fit
government scaling not only via partnerships
their need and eligibility and are located
to deliver services but also as advocate,
near them.
facilitator, and funder, as well as regulator or
provider (Brisbane Marketing, 2017). Scaling
the variety of services follows a common
lesson that the initial version of a service
(developed in Government 1.0) might not be Queensland Government,
One-Stop Shop Strategy and
used by some citizen groups. Government
Implementation Office
2.0’s attention to equitability compels the
providers to design additional varieties of a Youth unemployment
service to make it available to other potentially This project sought to assist Queensland
underserved groups. youth job seekers find information
about the supports and services to
help them find training and employment
Effective scaling of services, both in volume opportunities.
and variety, requires a focus on the value
We designed a ‘digital guidance
chain, as well as continued focus on service counsellor’ service.
experience. Service designers remain critical
in this stage to ensure scaling the variety,
and operating officers join them in enabling
volume scaling.

8 Government 5.0
Government 3.0: Automation Examples of QUT Chair in Digital Economy
projects
As the volume and variety of service delivery
reaches satisfactory levels, the focus shifts
toward efficiency of the delivery. The
operating model becomes the focus, and Queensland State Archives
efficiency gains are sought, allowing for
Automating recordkeeping
a more efficient allocation of public funds
and appraisal
(Australian Productivity Commission and New
Zealand Productivity Commission, 2019).
This project sought to develop an
Practicality, or ability to deliver services at a
automated solution to the manual,
“reasonable” cost, becomes the KPI. The third cumbersome process of recordkeeping
stage of Government focuses on automation and record appraisal.
of its activities — seeking productivity gains,
improving efficiency and throughput, and
cutting cost and waste (Australian Productivity
Commission and New Zealand Productivity
Commission, 2019). This might lead to
reduction in the delivery of some services
developed in Government 2.0, due to purely Queensland Government,
economic considerations. One-Stop Shop Strategy and
Implementation Office

Ensuring efficiency of service delivery is the

Grant finder
(Queensland Government, 2019)
goal of operating officers, and Government
3.0 is driven by the ambition to create a very This project sought to improve
efficient, lean, public service delivery operation.
awareness of and access to information
about grants that were relevant to a
The cost of service (the lower, the better) and
specific business or sector.
the efficiency (the higher, the better) become
the strategic differentiators in the third stage of
evolution.

The future of public services 9

Government 4.0: Digitalisation Examples of QUT Chair in Digital Economy
projects
The fourth stage of evolution is digitalisation.
Beyond simple automation (where
some aspects of the Government are
merely digitised), digitalisation explores Queensland Treasury,
completely new business models and new Office of State Revenue
types of customer engagement (Kowalkiewicz, Process transformation
2017b). This project sought to optimise the tax
collection processes across revenue
In Government 4.0, institutions focus on their lines, offering a “single client view”,
that connects departments, delivering a
business model and try to become attractive
more proactive service.
to their customers. Since the concept of value
proposition is an important component of a
business model, Government 4.0 initiatives
introduce new and unique value propositions
for customers. These novel value propositions
are often only possible due to improvements
achieved in Government 2.0 and 3.0. With new
value propositions, new and better business Queensland State Archives
models emerge in this stage. Service delivery Hindsight-insight-foresight
shifts from individual departments to whole-of- This project sought to unlock the
government orchestrators. benefits of a digitised recordkeeping
world, whereby records could offer more
than hindsight, they also offer insight for
The new strategic differentiator in Government
daily business decisions and foresight
4.0 is the connectivity of services provided.
for future decisions.

10 Government 5.0
Government 5.0: Personalisation other participants in the ecosystem that impact
citizens’ lives, are critical. Participants of the
The fifth stage recognises the core role of ecosystem will move away from just delivering
citizens and flips the government’s operational services, to maintaining lifelong partnerships
model. It is a mindset shift: from citizen with citizens, where government interventions
relationship management to citizen managed are an exception rather than the norm.
relationships. Or, as the Future of Public
Sector Outsourcing puts it, “from governing for Examples of QUT Chair in Digital Economy
projects
citizens to governing with citizens” (ISS, 2014,
p. 11). Such an approach is based on higher
levels of citizen engagement and requires a
shift in public service skills towards flexibility, Queensland Government,
co-creation, and co-venturing (PwC, 2013). Department of Science, Information
Technology, and Innovation
In the public sector, the Government 5.0 goes Opening a café
well beyond citizen centric services, or whole- This project sought to create a virtual
of-government approaches to service delivery assistant to proactively deliver relevant,
and gravitates toward whole-of-life service timely information surrounding timeframe,
delivery. Understanding the citizen model, not steps to take and costs for starting
through a government lens, but holistically, is and running a café, using an easy to
the focus. In 5.0, public service providers are understand language.
asking where they can fit into their customers’
lives, rather than the other way around of
“where do citizens fit in providers’ processes?”.

The strategic attention introduced in

Government 5.0 is desirability, expressed
as focus on ensuring the wellbeing of the
customers and seamless interactions with
the public sector. Desirability from design
thinking asks strategic questions, such as: will
the solution fill a need, fit into people’s lives,
appeal to them, and will they want it? (Lamp,
2014).

This could be you!

Government 5.0 cannot be achieved by
individual institutions (departments or
government levels) but can only result from
overcoming the barriers between them. Cross-
government teams, and partnerships with

The future of public services 11

 The six trends impacting Government 5.0

In our research we have observed six social, business, and digital

trends impacting the evolution of public services in Government 5.0.
The trends apply either to citizen experience—outside-in perspective—
or to service delivery—inside-out perspective. In this section we
explain each of the six trends, and since they apply in other sectors
too, we translate them to the government context before highlighting
what needs to be done. We also suggest some questions for you
to consider when addressing these trends in your organisation.

Social trends encompass changing citizen behaviour and the way

SOCIAL
TRENDS
communities are shaping the “why”, “how” and “what”
of government services.

Business trends capture the shifts in how business practice is

BUSINESS developing, delivering value for customers, and addressing risks
TRENDS
and opportunities in the market.

Digital trends capture the way in which technology and associated

DIGITAL capabilities are evolving, including the changing ways in which we
TRENDS create, store, use, manage, and secure information.

Citizen experience trends highlight expectations of the users of public CITIZEN

services, their changing attitudes and other developments in social EXPERIENCE
norms impacting the demand for public services. TRENDS

Service delivery trends, in turn, reflect the impact on the supply—or

delivery—of public services: the changing regulatory environments, SERVICE
business environment evolution, and new developments in the DELIVERY
TRENDS
technology space.

12 Government 5.0
 SOCIAL BUSINESS DIGITAL
TRENDS TRENDS TRENDS
TREND CATEGORIES

CITIZEN SERVICE CITIZEN SERVICE SERVICE CITIZEN

EXPERIENCE DELIVERY EXPERIENCE DELIVERY DELIVERY EXPERIENCE
TRENDS TRENDS TRENDS TRENDS TRENDS TRENDS

Digital Right to Demise of Entropy on Digital Trust

Sanitisation Explanation Industries the Rise Twinning Paradox
TREND

Revival of Increased black Jobs-to-be-done Bold is the Confidence Trust authority

personalisation box awareness in focus new agile through evidence gap
WHAT DOES IT MEAN

Citizens want AI tools should Citizen needs are Increase in Digitalisation A need for
personalised be deployed only centred around number of wicked of public sector government to be
services. where acceptable their life events, challenges and allows for mass- a trusted authority;
and humans need not government need to address scale what-if assess the “public
Even when the
to be trained departments. them differently analysis. good” value of
services are
in explaining (than in the past). data.
automated. Initiatives can be
and defending
Need a pipeline simulated before
or correcting
of loonshots deployment.
decisions of AI.
supporting
moonshots
(Bahcall, 2019).
WHAT NEEDS
TO BE DONE

Human face of Human Department of Loonshot Mass policy Deliver on the

the machine checksum life events incubation simulation ART of digital

Digital sanitisation engagement, value, and satisfaction (Huang

& Rust, 2018; Wirtz et al., 2018). Mobile
What is it? first, online first, and digital first approaches
turn human-to-human interactions in service
The Government 3.0 and Government 4.0
delivery from commonplace activities into
focus on automation and digitalisation leads to
exceptional cases. While the technology first
a changed nature of service delivery. The use
developments are driven by well justified
of artificial intelligence and robotics in services
needs to improve practicality or connectivity of
is an evolving field of research, exploring
services, the goals of 4.0 and 5.0, they may
how these technologies in different service
also result in lower citizen satisfaction.
industries can impact customer experience,
The future of public services 13
What does it mean? achieving it, humans may need to be re-
introduced in service delivery: either as sole
Revival of personalisation. Recent reports providers or supporting the technology to
(Mulesoft, 2018) indicate that citizens are provide the “human face of the machine”.
expecting a more “human touch” in delivery of
Questions to think about for
services. Since most recent initiatives in public
sector transformation focused on automation
Government 5.0 leaders
of service delivery, it becomes apparent that
• Can you augment your digital services
digital sanitisation – the removal of human
with human interactions? (for instance,
interactions from services where they are not
chatbot interactions observed and
crucial – is not welcome by citizens. Other
enhanced by real humans)
sectors, such as banking or insurance, have
started to re-implement personalisation, • Can you augment your human-delivered
bringing back the human touch where it is services with digital support? (for
expected, with positive outcomes. The focus instance, call centre workers teaming
on delivering efficient, responsive, or proactive up with voice processing algorithms
public services risks overlooking the role of providing relevant data)
the human touch. Government 5.0 needs • Do you measure affectiveness of your
to find the right balance between efficiency, services (as opposed to their efficiency
effectiveness, and affectiveness. and effectiveness)?

What needs to be done?

Right to explanation
Human face of the machine. While
implementing digital transformation initiatives, What is it?
Government 5.0 leaders need to focus on
ensuring that the technology “feels human”. Artificial intelligence algorithms are increasingly
More human-like characteristics, such as voice, being used to support and—in some cases—
ability to express emotions, eye-contact, will perform government decision-making. In
encourage people to engage longer with the response to this use, several governments
technology (Holtgraves et al., 2007), building introduced regulations aimed at ensuring the
trust and desire for future interactions (Mann right to explanation for citizens. The right to
et al., 2015). Simply analysing transaction explanation means that whenever a decision
efficiency, number of clicks to reach the goal, is made by an algorithm, the subjects of
or measuring conversion of service users the decision have the right to request a full
is not enough to assess the value of digital justification for that decision. Traditionally, if
public services. The analysis needs to also a government decision challenged a citizen’s
consider the sentiment of citizens, politeness fundamental rights, citizens are owed notice
of interactions, and emotional impact of these and a chance to be heard to contest those
services. Where affectiveness of services decisions, under the principles of natural
is vital, but technology does not allow for justice (Hogan-Doran, 2017, p. 2). Where a
decision cannot be explained, “public law’s
14 Government 5.0
mandates of transparency, fairness, and Donovan, Hanson, & Matthews, 2018).
accuracy” cannot be guaranteed (Hogan-
Doran, 2017, p. 2). This becomes problematic
What needs to be done?
for assessing whether the legislation a
Human checksum. Just as computer systems
government organisation operates under has
have been used to verify and validate human
been executed appropriately. For Government
actions, for instance book-keeping systems
5.0, fully focusing on personalisation and
confirming the correctness of transactions
desirability means there is simply no place for
entered, the public sector needs to implement
“black box” decision making (Rao & Golbin,
the human checksum: individuals validating that
2018). Providing explanations of algorithm-
decisions made by algorithms are appropriate.
made decisions is an important capability to
For more information about this concept, see:
be developed.
The human checksum (Kowalkiewicz, 2019).
What does it mean?
New T-shaped workforce capability. A
Increased black box awareness. Public new workforce capability of T-shaped public
sector organisations need to implement servants, following the concept of T-shaped
clear rules for application of algorithms, and people (Yip, 2018) needs to be developed.
especially black-box algorithms, in decision T-shaped public servants possess a depth
making. Where black-box algorithms are of skills and knowledge in at least one area
deployed, they either need to be deployed in but can collaborate with other experts outside
scenarios where explanation is not expected their domain to translate their insights. This
to be required, or where it is possible for new capability will ensure that system, policy,
humans to provide satisfactory explanations of and operational changes are understood, so if
the output of the algorithms. “The governance decisions are automated, the T-shaped public
of technology needs as much new thinking, servants can interpret and explain the outputs.
energy, and investment as technological
innovation does” (Bernholz, 2019, p. 10). Questions to think about for
Government 5.0 leaders
As more government organisations use
• Are you transparent in your processes,
automated tools for decisions about welfare,
outputs and outcomes? If not, can they
tax, and health, staff need to be able to explain
be explained if a citizen requests it?
and defend, or correct those decisions.
Centerlink’s robodebt and the ATO case • Are the appropriate systems in place to
offer high profile examples of what can go ensure that the right people are being
wrong (Huggins, 2019), with potential flow-on held accountable for actions taken and
consequences for public trust and confidence decisions made?
in government decision making (Huggins,
• Is your team able to work with algorithmic
2018). More needs to be done in the area of
decision-makers to interpret and explain
algorithmic accountability for these powerful
the outputs?
tools to serve the public good (Caplan,

The future of public services 15

 Rules-as-code
Algorithmic decision-making is often implemented as a rules-as-code in
practice. Here are examples of initiatives in this space.
•CSIRO Data61’s Regulation as a Platform project — development of a
logic system to turn human-readable text into machine-readable versions
of current laws, acts, policies and other regulatory documents.
•Mes Aides — a social benefits simulator to inform French citizens on
their eligibility for 32 social benefits and LexImpact — a tool to simulate
the impact of tax reforms on the French government’s budget and on the
population’s standard of living.
•Denmark’s implementation of mandatory principles for digital-ready
legislation.
•Apps and tools to help citizens and businesses understand their rights
and obligations in relation to government services and benefits — for
example the New Zealand SmartStart guide providing parents with
step-by-step information and support in accessing family services and
benefits.

For more information about rules as code activities,

see: https://medium.com/qut-cde/rules-as-code-7af29023db11

The demise of industries on is the organisations’ focus on serving their

customers to help them achieve their goals,
What is it? as their needs evolve. This is an important
observation for the public sector, which is
Globally, we are observing continuous shifts
largely unchanged when it comes to the types
within and across industries. Digital leaders
of services offered and its own perception of
of the markets continuously reimagine
what is “right” for citizens.
themselves—from information provision, to
advertising; from hardware manufacturing to What does it mean?
entertainment services; from media streaming
to media production. It is no longer sustainable Jobs-to-be-done in focus. Government 1.0,
to look at one’s organisation through an 2.0, and 3.0’s approach to delivering required
industry lens. Industries are dead. What lives services (1.0) at scale (2.0) and efficiently
16 Government 5.0
(3.0) missed an important consideration: to be done (e.g. mobility). This will require
effective and efficient or seamless have a development of a matrix organisational
different meaning for service customers and structure within the government and a highly
service suppliers. Government 4.0 introduced efficient collaboration with other levels of
a seamless consideration but limited it to government, leading to a whole-of-life, rather
seamless interaction with other services of than whole-of-government approach.
the same government. However, citizens
expect to achieve specific goals in their lives,
Questions to think about for
not interact with individual departments, Government 5.0 leaders
however seamless. Government 5.0 turns
• What are the life events of citizens
the expectation that citizens will adapt their
that traditional departments could be
processes to government’s (optimised
combined around to deliver value on?
and seamless) processes on its head.
Government 5.0 adapts its processes to • What other departments and government
citizens’ lives. Following the jobs-to-be-done levels do your service customers need
approach (Christensen, Hall, Dillon & Duncan, to interact with to achieve their goals?
2016), public services need to focus on
• Does your department provide
addressing the actual needs of the citizens.
programmatic access (API) to your
The biggest roadblock to achieving the goals
services, to allow for integration of your
of Government 5.0 is the current structure
services with services of others?
of most governments. Departments are the
biggest roadblocks to innovation.
Entropy on the rise
What needs to be done?
What is it?
Department of Life Events. Citizen needs
are increasingly differential and complex Fuelled by the rapid pace of innovation, the
(Bernholz, 2019). In our research, time and complexity of the world that public sector
time again, we have seen that when true citizen institutions need to deal with is continuously
centricity is introduced, individual departments increasing. For instance, in mobility space,
are unable to comprehensively address a gone are the days when cars could be classified
citizen need. Even cross-departmental or by the number of cylinders (most electric cars
whole-of-government solutions fail, often do not have combustion engines). Recent
due to inability of individual departments disruptions to the market cannot be dealt with
to collaborate effectively in responding to using the standard policymaking tools, and
a citizen’s life event, shifting the burden of many digital transformation projects fail, unable
orchestration to the citizen. Government 5.0 to deal with the complexity of the real-world
transformation leaders need to take on this (Moore, 2013). According to World Economic
responsibility. While recognising this is a major Forum’s “Our Shared Digital Future”, only 1%
transformational initiative, we recommend of digital transformation efforts in 2018 were
redesigning departments around citizens’ jobs going to achieve their goals, with more than
US$1.2 trillion spent on these efforts (World
The future of public services 17
Economic Forum, 2018). More optimistic What needs to be done?
estimates suggest that 84% of organisations
fail at digital transformation (Rogers, 2016). Loonshot incubation. Create structural
The increasing complexity, or rising entropy, change around the systems, designs, and
of the world is one of the reasons behind incentives for innovation in your organisation
these disappointing success rates. However, (Bahcall, 2019). Government 5.0 leaders
it doesn’t have to be. Embracing disorder – or should support ‘loonshots’: “seemingly crazy
entropy – could provide the resilience needed ideas that are easily dismissed, but actually
to respond to such circumstances (see possess important potential” (ibid.). Many and
Entrepreneurial Entropy: Myers, 2017). frequent loonshots are required to address
society’s moonshots, which are goals to solve
What does it mean?
wicked problems such as poverty, hunger,
education, inequality, justice, and well-being
Bold is the new agile. If the failure rates
(United Nations, 2015), but also increase the
remain so high, the only approach to increasing
number of successful ideas. The right culture
the number of successful initiatives is to
of innovation will follow these structural
accept the probability of success and increase
changes, changing behaviour of those working
the number of trials, to increase odds overall.
in government.
Truly successful digital giants understand this
and invest in large numbers of experiments.
Take Google as an example. Google Wave, Co-create and crowdsource solutions
Google Buzz, Google+, Google Answers, with citizens. Supporting citizen scientists
Dodgeball, Orkut, Google Hangouts on Air, to offer grassroots solutions to problems and
Google Notebook, Google Page Creator, opportunities that deliver public good, such
Google Catalog Search, Google Glass and as Zika Mozzie Seeker, a technology solution
Google Video are just some of the many failed that empowers thousands of Queenslander’s
experiments. Yet, Google’s parent company, to detect the presence of mosquitoes that can
Alphabet, remains one of the largest and most carry the Zika virus (OECD OPSI and MBRCGI,
successful businesses in the world. Why are 2019). Designing co-creation processes and
governments not as bold to test new ideas and incentivising crowdsourcing initiatives will
quickly pull out if they are not successful? While allow for greater citizen-driven engagement
the government has largely been responsible (Deloitte, 2015).
for the major innovations in society such as
Questions to think about for
the internet, smartphone, and GPS tracking
Government 5.0 leaders
(Mazzucato, 2015), the entrepreneurial traits
of government are usually constrained to • How can you design and implement
domains like DARPA and NASA (Drake, 2017). institutional structures that incentivise
Government 5.0 needs to bring back the bold innovation in the public sector?
approach.
• How do you moderate non-standard
(or deviant, outlier) behaviour while
fostering creativity and innovation?
18 Government 5.0
 • How can you convince decision-makers What needs to be done?
and citizens that loonshots are a wise
way of spending taxpayers’ money? Mass policy simulation: Government 5.0
leaders need to develop digital twins of their
jurisdictions. These twins will allow them to
Digital twinning not only access most current information.
What is it? Well-designed digital twins will allow for
asking what-if questions. Such simulations at
Industry 4.0 introduced and popularised the scale will move away from risk assessments
concept of digital twins. Digital twins replicate to opportunity assessments. Such twins
a physical entity in a digital way. They keep need to go well beyond considering spatial
being updated to maintain their currency as and temporal information, like the NSW
the physical entity changes. For instance, digital twin proof of concept (Crozier, 2019).
buildings can have their digital twins, created Digital twins in Government 5.0 need to also
based on blueprints, digital images, and include business data. Such systems will
continuously updated as data from sensors allow for testing policy decisions before they
(temperature, humidity, people in the building) are implemented and allow policy makers to
are captured. Large geo-spatial twins are being understand the full scope of impact of their
created at the state level (for instance in New decisions. In the legislation space, digital
South Wales (Digital NSW, 2019)), to capture twins have the potential of supporting the
and manage environmental information. implementation of “rules as code” initiatives,
This concept could be extended to include allowing for digitalisation of law.
information about the economy, to create a
true digital twin of a government’s jurisdiction. Questions to think about for
Government 5.0 leaders
What does it mean?
• Who, in public sector, should initiate the
Confidence through evidence. A lot of public build of the digital twin of a jurisdiction?
sector decisions, not unlike the private sector,
• How can multiple levels of government
are being made with very limited information.
and various departments access the
A properly designed and built system, like
digital twin without breaching any data
digital twins in the private sector, can give
access restrictions?
public servants access to most current and
reliable information, improving the quality of • What minimum level of detail in digital
decisions. Leaders of Government 5.0 can twin is acceptable for it to be useful for
better understand the circumstances of the decision makers?
citizens and design and deliver services that
follow the whole-of-life principle. The evidence
provided by such a digital twin of the economy
can help reach high confidence in decision
making.

The future of public services 19

The trust paradox into the future there is an expectation for
government services to be delivered in a
What is it? transparent way using data that citizens have
consented to have used. Our report on Digital
The age of anticipating digital pervasiveness Identity 3.0 explored opportunities for citizens
is over (Bernholz, 2019). Citizens are now to be fully involved in managing data about
dependent on these systems to live, work,
them (Mertens and Rosemann, 2015).
and play. Yet, a paradox emerges where on
the one hand lots of data enable the delivery What needs to be done?
of better services, but on the other hand lots
of data can be perceived as (and used for) Deliver on the ART of Digital. Find a balance
spying on citizens. Society is facing a critical between being aspirational, delivering grand
moment where trust in institutions, including ideas and innovation solutions that are also
government, is at an all-time low (Elderman, responsible and trusted; see our report on the
2019). Digital was promoted to be “the great ART of Digital (Rosemann and Kowalkiewicz,
equaliser”, but unfortunately there are too 2018). One such focus should be on accessible-
many examples of digital technologies being by-design services, to avoid high profile failures
used to further divide us. like EFTPOS machines inaccessible for the
blind (Farrell, 2019). Another area warranting
What does it mean? focus is in the collection, retention, analysis,
and use of citizen data. Taking lessons from
Trust authority gap. Given the lack of trusted
private sector technologies used by Snapchat
authorities in society, especially in the space
and ProtonMail (Raphael, 2019), or the U.S.
of digital technologies, there is an urgent need
National Science Foundation funded initiative
for governments to be a trusted authority.
Vanish (Vanish, 2019), explore the possibility of
Governments are among the few institutions
“self-destructing data”. Citizens could provide
that have the potential of being trusted to
data to organisations to access services and
assess the public good value of data and
can choose for it to self-destruct to maintain
algorithms before they are used.
privacy and security.

There are many opportunities for the public Questions to think about for
sector to become the trusted authority. Society Government 5.0 leaders
needs to have confidence that services delivered
by governments will empower citizens to • How are today’s decisions about data
achieve their goals. There is a need to confirm regulation and governance going
that governments will serve society’s evolving to shape civil society in the coming
and specific needs, and—a new opportunity decades?
that has emerged—that governments can • How are citizens being included in these
lead society in the fair and transparent use of
policy decisions?
data. For all the trends outlined in this report
to deliver value to citizens, Government 5.0 • Does your institution focus only on being
requires significant data collection, secure trusted, or also explores opportunities to
retention, and maintenance of privacy. Moving be responsible and aspirational?

20 Government 5.0
 Strategic, structural, and operational drivers
There are several strategic, structural, and operational drivers for implementing
public services in Government 5.0. Consider the follow questions posed by PwC:
Strategic questions - “Why do we do this?”
• Is the activity essential to meet government priorities?
• Does the government need to fund this activity?
• Does the activity provide substantial economic value?
This might include looking at options for the public to do more for themselves as
well as the public sector stopping doing things completely.

Structural questions - “By whom and for whom?”

• Can the activity be targeted to those most in need?
• Can local bodies as opposed to central or federal government provide the
activity?
• Can the activity be provided by a non-state provider or by citizens, wholly or
in partnership?
• Can non-state providers be paid to carry out the activity according to the
results they achieve – payment by results?
This might also include looking to provide many more services online or through
other cheaper delivery channels shared across public organisations.

Operational questions - “How can we do this?”

• How can the activity be provided at lower cost?
• How can the activity be provided more effectively?
This might include reducing spending through outsourcing, standardising,
simplifying and sharing routine services and boosting staff productivity.
(Source: PwC, 2013, p. 32)

The future of public services 21

 Conclusion
Transformation fatigue and change fatigue
need to be language of the past. Changes
in societal expectations, technologies, and
business will never be this slow again. As a
leader of Government 5.0, you need to take
leadership to change the mindset of staff to one
that embraces iterative innovation, loonshots,
policy simulations, and building T-shaped
capabilities. Foster responsible, trusted, and
explainable service delivery that is personal,
affective, and co-created. Together, these
provide the foundation for whole-of-life service
delivery for citizens in Government 5.0.

There are many exciting opportunities ahead for

governments to meet the changing demands
of citizens in a new era of public service. It is
critical that organisations large and small rise
to meet these innovation challenges to ensure
they capitalise on the major trends rather than
getting left behind and failing to deliver what
society needs.

22 Government 5.0
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The future of public services 27

 Chair in Digital Economy,
QUT Business School
2 George Street, BRISBANE Q 4000
www.chairdigitaleconomy.com.au
@chairdigeconomy

Special thanks to:

Thanks to our Founding Partners:

CRICOS 00213J

28 Government 5.0