State of the Service Spotlight: South Australian Innovation 2024

South Australia’s Government Innovation Showcase 2024 provided a vital platform for discussing the challenges and opportunities shaping the state’s digital transformation journey. This year’s discussions centered on balancing innovation, workforce development, and cybersecurity to meet evolving citizen expectations. A series of real-time polls captured the priorities and concerns of attendees, offering a unique window into the state’s public sector landscape and its alignment with broader national and global trends.

Protect or Progress? South Australia’s Balancing Act

South Australia's top priority, transforming and automating processes (23%), matched the national average, reflecting shared national goals for modernising government services to simultaneously boost results across efficiency, productivity, and customer experience. This also encapsulates the shift and recognition towards the booming opportunity driven by the latest advancements across the AI sector.

South Australian responses strikingly indicate a distinct prioritisation of modernising data and cyber security processes (22%) out of proportion with the national average (10%). This highlights a heightened regional focus on safeguarding digital infrastructure, and fostering a digital government where cybersecurity remains a critical enabler for trust and innovation.

However, South Australia’s focus on modernisation appears to have drawn attention away from other critical areas, such as updating workplace culture and upskilling the workforce, which registered only 8% of responses compared to the national average of 17%. This suggests a potential gap in readiness for workforce transformation, a vital element for sustaining digital maturity.

Collaboration with other departments and tiers of government was marginally less emphasised in South Australia (9%) versus nationally (12%), but still points to the broader opportunity for stronger inter-agency partnerships.

These findings underline the need for South Australian organisations to balance their focus on cyber security with investments in workforce upskilling, interdepartmental collaboration, and cultural transformation. By doing so, they can align more holistically with national and global priorities for secure digital transformation.

Innovation’s Biggest Enemy: Can South Australia Beat the Budget?

South Australian respondents identified budget constraints (38%) as the most significant barrier to building a culture of continuous innovation, surpassing the national average of 33%. This higher percentage indicates a heightened need for funding and resource allocation to drive innovation in South Australian agencies, which could include taking note of modernising approaches to digital sourcing and agile procurement emerging interstate (Digital Restart Fund- NSW & Digital Capability Fund- WA). In contrast, policy and processes (red tape), the second most significant barrier nationally at 20%, was deprioritised in South Australia (10%), signaling a comparatively lower perceived impact of bureaucratic hurdles.

Talent and skill shortages emerged as a unique challenge in South Australia, with 25% of responses compared to the national average of 14%. This aligns with broader workforce challenges identified across previous polls, further highlighting the urgency of addressing skill gaps to sustain innovation.

Interestingly, South Australian agencies showed less concern for barriers like establishing a shared vision (4%) and leadership buy-in (9%), both of which were less emphasized compared to their national averages of 10% and 11%, respectively. This may suggest a relatively cohesive leadership framework but also risks underestimating the importance of strategic alignment in fostering a culture of innovation.

These findings underscore the need for South Australian agencies to prioritise targeted funding strategies and workforce development initiatives to address budgetary constraints and talent shortages. Additionally, fostering a stronger focus on leadership alignment and long-term vision setting could further support the drive toward a culture of continuous innovation.

Public Sector on the Brink: How Economic Pressure and Workforce Crises Are Shaping the Future

South Australian respondents aligned with the national average (35%) in identifying economic challenges - budget constraints and competing priorities as the most significant issue facing the public sector. This reflects a shared concern across Australia about the pressures of fiscal management and resource allocation in an increasingly complex operating environment and sprawling legacy technology where governments mandate to do more with less is as strong as ever.

The workforce challenge of talent attraction and retention was equally prioritised in South Australia (35%) but stands out as a joint-leading concern alongside economic challenges. This elevated emphasis mirrors the other poll findings on South Australia’s struggles with skill shortages and highlights the critical need to address workforce-related gaps as a core enabler of public sector resilience.

Conversely, technological challenges, including the digital divide and the rapid pace of change, were deprioritised in South Australia (12%) compared to the national average (17%). This lower emphasis could indicate relative satisfaction with existing digital initiatives and recognition of the need for the public sector workforce to come up to speed with enabling technology and the expectations of digitally savvy citizens on the whole.

South Australia slightly exceeded the national average in concerns over security challenges (9% vs. 7%), highlighting heightened regional awareness of cybersecurity threats. This alignes with previous polling that showed strong prioritisation of modernising data and cybersecurity processes.

These findings underscore the need for South Australian public sector leaders to prioritise economic and workforce challenges while remaining vigilant about the evolving demands of digital transformation and cybersecurity. Addressing these areas holistically will position the region to better align with national and global public sector priorities.

Action over Apathy: Why South Australia’s Talent Problem Needs Urgent Attention

Despite being proportionately in line with national results in terms of priority, South Australian results underscored a higher acknowledgment of inaction, with 47% indicating, “We’re not, but should be,” compared to the national average of 36%. 

These votes took away focus from key areas including the leading national strategy that emerged in focusing on career paths and upskilling, where South Australia (25%) lags slightly behind the Australian average (30%), highlighting the opportunity for leaders to undertake long-term talent development planning. 

Flexible working, also a key enabler of modern talent strategies, was similarly less prioritised in South Australia (12%) compared to the national average (16%) due to the concentration of responses set in "We're not, but should be". These findings emphasise the holistic need for cross-functional leaders to target upskilling, flexible work policies, and stronger workforce branding to join global digital government trends spearheading the sector's talent challenges.

Collaborate and Upskill: The Recipe for Meeting Public Expectations

South Australian respondents prioritised cross-agency and cross-sector collaboration (29%) and talent attraction and retention strategies (29%) as the top changes needed to help government meet public expectations. While these align with the national emphasis on collaboration (38.8%) and talent strategies (20.2%), South Australia demonstrated a more balanced focus between these two critical areas, highlighting both structural and workforce-related barriers.

Workforce upskilling emerged as a more prominent focus in South Australia (19%) compared to the national average (14.7%), indicating a strong regional awareness of the need to develop capabilities internally and again complementing earlier results.

Conversely, improved data democratisation and utilisation was deprioritised in South Australia (6%) by almost half, relative to the national average (11.3%), potentially signaling either a lag in the increasing synergy between digital and data professions or satisfaction with current progress in this area thanks to strong leadership from the Office for Data Analytics, despite its small team.

These results underscore the need for South Australian public sector leaders to prioritise collaborative strategies and workforce development, ensuring alignment with both national and regional goals. Additionally, there is an opportunity to increase focus on data-driven decision-making given the growing need for open data integration and real-time data access powering the next wave of technology modernisation in predictive services and evidence based decision making in government.

Conclusion

Across all polls, a clear narrative emerged: South Australia's public sector must strike a balance between safeguarding its digital infrastructure and addressing critical workforce challenges integral to this priority. The focus on modernisation, particularly in data and cybersecurity, reflects a strong preference for trust and innovation, but gaps in upskilling, collaboration, and strategic vision highlight areas requiring urgent attention as foundational capabilities for a government of the future.

The findings offer valuable insights into where efforts should be concentrated—targeting workforce development, fostering inter-agency partnerships, and leveraging data-driven decision-making. By addressing these priorities, South Australian leaders can build resilience, deliver efficient and inclusive services, and position the state as a leader in secure and sustainable digital transformation.