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Planning and Organisational Alignment

With the foundational principles established, the first phase in the service delivery lifecyle is to create the non-technical groundwork for interoperability. This involves establishing clear governance, aligning business processes, and formalizing agreements between cooperating agencies.

Interoperability Governance​

Effective interoperability governance necessitates a dedicated cross-ministerial body responsible for strategic decision-making regarding national standards and specifications. This body must define the national interoperability framework, establish institutional structures, clarify organizational roles, and develop comprehensive policies and agreements. Crucially, this body must maintain a direct working link to the digital transformation units within each Ministry and Public Agency to ensure seamless coordination and implementation.

The building blocks, standards, and specifications endorsed by this governing body serve as the bedrock upon which successful interoperability is built. They provide a common language and a set of rules that enable diverse systems to communicate and exchange data seamlessly. Without these well-defined standards, digital services risk becoming fragmented, hindering efficiency and the ability to provide cohesive public ser- vices. There are six key steps to managing them appropriately:

  1. Identifying candidate building blocks, standards, and specifications based upon specific needs and requirements;
  2. Assessing candidate items using transparent, fair, and non-discriminatory meth- ods;
  3. Implementing and adopting the selected items according to plans and practical guidelines;
  4. Monitoring compliance with the building blocks, standards, and specifications, and managing change with appropriate procedures;
  5. Documenting all items in open catalogs using a standardised description format.

Organisational Interoperability​

Organisational interoperability refers to “the way in which public administrations align their business processes, responsibilities and expectations to achieve commonly agreed and mutually beneficial goals”. While Ministries and Public Agencies have long collaborated on various projects, delivering cross-agency digital services requires special attention to the interoperability of their internal processes, including aspects of accountability, auditability, data sharing protocols, and clearly defined roles.

Given that existing communication practices have proven successful in driving projects, the CamGIF recommends that leadership continues these processes while adhering to several key suggestions for formalization:

  • When developing new digital services that rely on other agencies’ systems or data, decisions and responsibilities should be formally documented using commonly agreed-upon formats such as Memorandums of Understanding (MoU), Service Level Agreements (SLA), or other appropriate documentation.
  • The mechanism for cross-agency communication should be based on bilateral agreements whenever possible, as they are typically simpler to manage than multilateral agreements.

Coordinating Care Between Health and Social Care Providers is a good example of aligning business processes. Health and social care agencies establish shared care plans and common communication protocols. They develop collaboration agreements that define the roles and responsibilities of each provider. This improves the quality of care, reduces duplication of effort, and leads to better patient outcomes.

Integrated Public Service Governance​

Delivering integrated digital public services necessitates collaboration among multiple public agencies, which in turn requires coordinated governance for that specific integrated service. This service-level governance, which spans the organisational, semantic, and technical aspects, ensures the proper integration, reuse, and development of shared services and data. Because the service environment is constantly evolving due to user needs, organisational changes, and new technologies, continuous oversight is crucial. Effective governance for an integrated service includes defined roles, clear service agreements, interoperability management, formal change procedures, and robust continuity plans.

Therefore, integrated public service governance should include, at a minimum:

  • The definition of organisational structures, roles, responsibilities, and the decision-making process for the stakeholders involved.
  • Agreements on aspects of interoperability, including the quality, scalability, and availability of reusable building blocks (e.g., information sources like base registries, open data portals, etc.) and other interconnected services.
  • Clear Service Level Agreements (SLAs) for any external information or services being used, including those on interoperability.
  • A change management plan to define the procedures and processes needed to deal with and control changes to the service.
  • A business continuity and disaster recovery plan to ensure that the digital public service and its building blocks continue to function in various situations, such as cyberattacks or the failure of a component.

Implementing a National Data Governance Framework is an example of integrated public service governance. The government develops a national framework that defines data ownership, access policies, and security standards for sharing citizen data across agencies. A dedicated data governance board is established to oversee its implementation. This protects citizen privacy, ensures data quality, and promotes the responsible use of data across the government.