1005.0 - ABS Corporate Plan, 2018-19  
ARCHIVED ISSUE Released at 11:30 AM (CANBERRA TIME) 31/08/2018   
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4. OUR OPERATING ENVIRONMENT


Government Directions & Priorities
  • Increasing demand for ABS services by government, researchers and businesses
  • Reduction of public trust in government and institutions
  • Budget constraints on ABS and potential funders
  • Supporting new Government initiatives such as the National Data Commissioner
  • Continued Government focus on jobs, economic growth and digital services
  • Increasing demand for local level data. Variations in state/territory needs are driving a search for new ways to measure change.

Relationships | Engagement | Services
  • A reliance on broadcast services and social media to help shape the public’s view and understanding of the ABS and our value
  • State Government data sharing legislation is changing governance and engagement arrangements
  • Partner entities are under greater fiscal pressure and seeking more efficient and innovative statistical solutions.

Customer service | Use of data
  • The Data Integration Partnerships Australia (DIPA) initiative is fostering collaboration with data custodians to produce enduring linked data assets
  • Customers/users demanding further access to improved ABS data and products
  • Some highly publicised privacy failures in public and private institutions are challenging public support for data use and potentially undermining support for expanded use of community and industry data
  • Customers increasingly relying on other data custodians to supply data by trading cost for quality.

Providers | Collaboration
  • Increasingly difficult to sustain high response rates to ABS household surveys
  • Many more information alternatives – exponential growth in information and evidence sources available
  • Difficulty in sustaining business participation
  • Data collection methods are looking to reduce provider burden as much as possible
  • ABS is increasingly reliant on other data custodians to continuously supply quality data to support ABS statistical products.

Society | Economy | Environment
  • Globalisation and sectoral shift from mining and manufacturing to services (including non-market services)
  • Data has become an increasingly valuable commercial asset prompting debate on government access for statistical and research purposes
  • Big data creating opportunities to enhance quality, but also new challenges in analytics, storage, sharing; and is perceived by some as intrusive.

Technology | Opportunities | Changes
  • Government invested in the ABS over 5 years to develop statistical capabilities required for a 21st Century national statistical office
  • The World Economic Forum 2018 Global Risks Report identified “cyber attacks” and “data theft or fraud” in its top 5 Global risks likely to occur
  • New technologies (machine intelligence, cloud-based services) driving new capability needs and competition in data and statistical services
  • Interagency data collaboration and sharing impacting infrastructure development intensity
  • Speed of change – Greater complexity and rapid speed of change is increasing the technology turnover/refresh rate and is undermining the promise of efficiencies from IT improvements.