Creating more connected government services is not simply a technology challenge.
Agencies operate across different systems, priorities and ministerial responsibilities, while citizens and businesses increasingly expect their interactions with government to feel simple and joined up.
Ahead of Digital Leadership Day Federal 2026, Public Sector Network spoke with John Shepherd, First Assistant Secretary, Digital ID and Data Policy Division, Department of Finance, about the shift from silos to systems, the importance of seeing services from the citizen perspective, how pilots can support responsible innovation, and why leaders need to engage directly with emerging technologies such as AI.
John will speak at Digital Leadership Day Federal in the panel “From Silos to Systems: Enabling A More Connected Public Sector.”
Q&A with John Shepherd
Public Sector Network: Your agenda stream looks at connected government and the shift from silos to systems. What is the biggest leadership challenge in making that shift real?
John Shepherd:
I think just the complexity of systems and some of the adaptive challenges and problems we’re trying to solve, and the need to work across agencies.
But still with a system that has agencies reporting to different ministers and sits on a bunch of existing systems that people are forever in a state of transition from.
Everyone has their priorities and urgent things that they’re focused on.
Trying to get people aligned and focused on the right things at the right time, and to connect on those, is probably one of the biggest challenges, despite a lot of goodwill across senior public servants.
Public Sector Network: Where do you think digital leaders need to focus first if they want to improve joined-up services?
John Shepherd:
Clearly, they need to focus and understand what the experience is of citizens.
We can all do that through our own experience and using things that we put out, but also through friends, family and other colleagues.
We have lots of opportunity now as public servants where we can get out to frontline areas in some of our big service delivery agencies and really get a better sense of what experience people are having.
But I’m a huge fan of actually using these services, trying these services yourself and trying to understand it from your perspective. Is it a good experience or not?
Joining some of this stuff up involves actually thinking about what it looks like from outside the service, or from the citizen perspective, and how we therefore support better connections across those things so it’s more seamless.
Public Sector Network: How do you balance innovation and speed with trust and governance?
John Shepherd:
That’s a great question.
I think the way lots of organisations and government tend to try to do these things is through pilots.
Pilots become really critical to being able to put things out in a safe environment, in a constrained environment, really quickly and learn things, and then build those into broader rollouts and broader programs and projects.
We tend to encourage very much a pilot-first approach, or proofs of concept.
Really try to understand what you’re trying to do and get learnings from that, so what you are putting out is actually quite robust and you do have your controls and governance in place when you go bigger.
That’s also important from the perspective of cost overruns and other things. You really want to understand what the risks are and what it is you’re trying to do on a broader scale.
The best way to do that is through experiments, I think.
Public Sector Network: How should leaders bring teams with them through digital and AI change?
John Shepherd:
The big thing there is actually understanding and using it.
Leaders now can’t ignore AI or think that’s something they want their teams to do.
Leaders need to be in and using the tools that we’ve got.
Certainly, the Commonwealth Government, and obviously the states and territories, have made tools available to staff and are very much encouraging leaders to do training, to understand, experiment and learn.
The best way to do that is to try using it.
My own experience with AI has been the more you try things and experiment, the better you get.
Obviously that’s like anything really, but as a leader we very much encourage and expect people to do, and not say, “I want you to do that,” without actually having done it myself.
Public Sector Network: From your session at Digital Leadership Day, what’s one message you hope attendees will take away with them?
John Shepherd:
One of the things I always like to focus on, and so my message might be, is to think about broader ecosystems and not think about government first.
One of the things that, through my career, I’ve really learnt and therefore emphasise with teams is: don’t think of people outside your organisation or outside government as “externals”, as people sometimes call them.
It goes back to where the citizen or business is. They are really at the centre of what we’re trying to achieve.
Think about how we genuinely partner with others, including business, software developers and other people in the ecosystem, to actually design and deliver some of these things.
We can’t design things from inside government without actually partnering on those things. It just doesn’t work.
From Silos to Systems
John will continue this discussion at Digital Leadership Day Federal 2026 in the panel:
From Silos to Systems: Enabling A More Connected Public Sector
The session will explore how government can move beyond organisational and technological silos to create more connected services, stronger collaboration and better outcomes across the public sector.
John will join senior leaders to discuss the practical challenges of working across agency boundaries, improving interoperability and putting the experience of citizens and businesses at the centre of digital service delivery.
Digital Leadership Day Federal takes place on Wednesday, 21 October 2026 at the National Convention Centre Canberra.
The event is designed for senior government leaders, with expressions of interest reviewed before attendance is confirmed.
Part of Government Innovation Week Federal
Digital Leadership Day is the opening event within Government Innovation Week Federal 2026, a broader two-day program focused on the priorities shaping digital, data, AI and cyber-enabled government.
The program continues on Thursday, 22 October with two major showcases.
Government Innovation Showcase Federal
The Government Innovation Showcase will bring together Federal Government leaders and practitioners for a full day focused on AI adoption, digital service reform, technology and data integration, productivity and workforce capability.
Explore Government Innovation Showcase Federal
Government Cyber Security Showcase Federal
Running alongside the Innovation Showcase, the Government Cyber Security Showcase will focus on the changing cyber threat environment, government resilience, critical infrastructure, AI-enabled threats, identity risk, supply chain exposure and incident response.
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