What are the benefits of a Public Service electronic shared

Benefits of a shared workspace

In the first working paper produced by the Shared Workspace Project Team, there are a number of potential benefits identified. These include:

• enabling greater accessibility to information, research and dialogue;

• fast, efficient means of communication and the transmission of ideas and options;

• improving the quality of policy advice;

• utilisation of technical capability and capacity of the new 'e' enabled technologies; and

• facilitating efficient changes to work practices.

These benefits depend on some underlying assumptions about the inherent value of doing work electronically, and some of the Focus Groups challenged these assumptions (refer pp 20-23 below).

Benefits that were identified and discussed by the Focus Groups included the following:

• availability of a secure electronic environment for the Public Service

• increased speed of response to documents/ information requests

• ability to do the job better because more information is available [in the past, 1/3 of time was spent seeking information; now 1/3 of time is spent screening information and we have a better idea of the range of information available that might assist our work either now, or at a future date when we need it]

• where projects and sub-projects are happening at the same time, and departments want to know what is going on but access to information is limited, the shared workspace may enable information to be more readily available in terms of both seeing final products (e.g. Cabinet papers), and seeing work as it develops (e.g. working papers)

• misplaced papers will always be available on-line

• contact information for people would be available at all times

• mailing lists for the project team could be held on the system

• should be possible to do turnaround of papers, and consultation, far more quickly and therefore more efficiently

• speed, quality and quantity of inputs

• potential to involve regional office staff, and gain the perspective of service delivery and regional interests.