ACT Digital Account: Empowering Citizens with Accessible Digital Services

Government services touch every aspect of our lives. The complex nature of government means they can be disparate, hard-to-find, and high-effort which prevents people from accessing the help they need. For ACT government: The challenge was to bring together high quality digital service offerings, in one easy to use location, to improve the lives of ACT citizens and efficiency of their service delivery. For citizens: Poor awareness of available services, inconsistent designs, requirements to visit service centres in-person, and associated wait times create significant burden of effort.

Over 14 weeks, the future vision for the ACT Digital Account was brought to life, a platform to bring together ACT government services and interactions in one convenient location. For citizens: The Digital Account makes accessing services and managing obligations with the ACT government easy and streamlined. Supported by a digital ID, citizens have a centralised channel to manage their relationship with the ACT Government. For government: Designed for scalability, consistency and sustainability, the ACT Digital Account enables efficient launching and maintenance of new digital services. The platform allows for greater insight into individual and community needs, enabling proactive support.

The ACT Digital Account benefits the whole ACT community: For citizens: Unifying the experience through one ID, the platform fosters ongoing relationships with citizens, storing previously provided information and transaction details, enabling pre-population of forms and personalisation throughout the experience. The directory increases awareness and utilisation of services whilst anticipating and supporting future needs. For ACT Government Underpinning the Digital Account is a pattern for delivering new services efficiently now and into the future. Simple online experiences lessen the load on service centres, freeing them up to focus on high-touch and high-guidance interactions that are most suited to human support.

Supporting new services at scale. Underpinning the new design for the ACT Digital Account is a pattern for rolling out new services efficiently. This removes the need for interfaces and technical systems to be created from scratch. This was critical to overcoming the past challenges associated with delivering digital services and allows directorates to focus on the design and delivery of the service itself. Improving service awareness and activation. The directory within the account helps citizens become aware and act on services they didn’t previously know about through an easy to navigate interface. Additionally, the directory will tailor itself based on the individual's previous usage and upcoming requirements. “Half of them [services] I didn’t know about but it’s wonderful” - ACT Citizen From transactions to relationships. The ACT Digital Account, in addition to simplifying access to services, improves the way government and citizens interact with each other: - Pro-active prompts for relevant upcoming interactions (e.g. expiring car registrations). - A centralised message inbox to make staying on top of government communications simpler. - An activity log showing detailed records of past interactions and the status of those in progress. - A profile section to easily update information held by the government in one place.