Te Tari Taiwhenua
Department of Internal Affairs
Purpose
1.
This briefing seeks your approval to carry out Ministerial, coalition, and support party
consultation in respect of the attached draft Cabinet paper -
Report back on COVID-19
Technology Response Oversight Requirements.
Background
2.
On 20 April 2020, the COVID-19 Ministerial Group noted that the Government Chief
Digital Officer (GDCO) will provide a report back with an analysis of COVID-19
technology response oversight requirements from a whole of government perspective
[CAB-20-MIN-0175 refers]. This report back was to include a proposed oversight
approach and a COVID-19 technology response plan.
3.
We propose lodging a final version of the attached draft Cabinet paper on 21 May
2020 for consideration by the Cabinet Government Administration and Expenditure
Review Committee on 28 May 2020.
Comment
The attached draft Cabinet paper fulfils the requirement to report back to Cabinet on
COVID-19 Technology Response oversight requirements.
4.
The paper notes the significance of technology to the COVID-19 response. Areas where
technology will be especially important will include providing support for health
outcomes, economic recovery, social cohesion and enabling technologies (e.g.
supporting readiness to respond to future challenges).
5.
The paper proposes that leveraging technology to support the COVID-19 response will
require enhanced oversight and coordination across government agencies. With
existing governance arrangements, such as to support the digital transformation of
government, not fit for purpose.
6.
COVID-19 response technologies are being assessed, developed and deployed against
a backdrop of significant public interest, limited domestic or international experience
and, frequently, high levels of urgency.
7.
While the government has limited time to implement technology solutions now, it
remains as important as ever to ensure that technology solutions meet expectations
and standards related to technical efficacy, privacy, information security, return on
investment, transparency, accountability and other factors.
8.
Key areas of oversight and coordination that are needed to ensure that COVID-19
response technology solutions meet appropriate standards and align to the
government’s overall response objectives are:
8.1
agreed shared objectives, which will include ensuring that issues of privacy,
security and digital inclusion are recognised and protected;
8.2
coordinated Ministerial decision making and prioritisation;
8.3
coordinated investment decisions and proposals to ensure effective use of
resources, leverage opportunities for re-use, and drive inter-operability and
architectural coherence;
8.4
consistent reporting and monitoring;
8.5
coordinated public messaging; and
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Te Tari Taiwhenua
Department of Internal Affairs
8.6
coordinated engagement with overseas jurisdictions.
The draft Cabinet paper recommends the establishment of a new COVID-19 Technology
Response oversight Steering Committee to deliver the required oversight and coordination
9.
The scale of the COVID-19 technology response, and associated urgency, requires a
more adaptive and focused oversight framework than the arrangements already in
place for digital government.
10. The establishment of a dedicated steering committee is recommended to deliver the
required level of coordination, oversight and assurance across all new and proposed
technology solutions that support the COVID-19 response. It is recommended that the
GCDO will convene and chair the steering committee. Other committee members are
proposed to be the Government Chief Information Security Officer and senior leaders
from the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, the
New Zealand Police, the National Crisis Management Centre and Te Arawhiti.
11. The committee will not govern the development or deployment of individual
technology solutions. That will continue to be the responsibility of the lead agency.
Once relevant technology solutions are deployed in full, operating without issue and
are not the subject of a dependency by another planned initiative, those solutions will
be transferred to the oversight of an appropriate existing sector governance group.
12. The Committee would report to a group of responsible Ministers, proposed as the
Minister for Government Digital Services and the Ministers of Finance, Justice, Internal
Affairs and Health. When these Ministers agree, on the advice of committee members,
that the steering committee is no longer required, any remaining functions of the
committee will be transferred to the Digital Government Leadership Group.
13. A proposed draft Terms of Reference for the COVID-19 Technology Response Steering
Committee is attached as
Appendix A of the draft Cabinet paper.
An initial priority for the Steering Committee will be agreement of a high level COVID-19
Technology Response plan
14. The development of a COVID-19 Technology Response Plan will be an initial priority for
the COVID-19 Technology Response Steering Committee. This plan will bring together
the growing number of potential technical solutions, enabling decision-making to
channel efforts into those that will be most effective.
15. An initial draft plan is attached as
Appendix B of the draft Cabinet paper.
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