The Department of Finance (Finance), as a central agency of the Australian Government, has a pivotal role in advising Government on strategic priorities and in the preparation, delivery and ongoing management of the Australian Federal Budget (the Budget). The Budget provides a picture of Australia’s forecast financial performance and the Government’s fiscal policy for the forward years.

Finance is seeking to modernise and improve the efficiency of the Budget process for internal and external entities as well as improve the quality of data and reporting capabilities.

Silverstone Edge was engaged by Finance to work closely with the Project Team to develop the Strategy and roadmap to modernise and improve the delivery of the Budget process. To ensure a holistic Strategy, our approach focused on interactive elements of business capabilities[1] and linkages to the strategic context. Our approach was to:

  • Establish an internal and external reference groups with stakeholders
  • Frame the challenge of the Budget process as user experience story
  • Design and facilitate service design workshops with a cross-section of participants (over 40 in each session) – this provided stakeholders with the opportunity to be involved in shaping the future, as well as providing insight on ways to improve the Budget process and operations (see example of output)
Graphic recording Dept Finance

Budget Modernisation Reference Group Internal Stakeholders

The first phase of the consultation resulted in a rich tapestry of issues with the Budget process across both central agencies and line entities, together with a strong sense of commitment to change at both strategic and operational levels. Following the first phase of consultations a high-level Strategy was developed and tested with key Finance Executive. The second phase of consultation included a series of focus sessions to validate and develop each of the key strategies and sought to identify existing synergies with other Finance initiatives.

The following is one of the visual artefacts we developed which summarises the Strategy development:

Figure 2 Department of Finance – Budget Improvement Strategy

Silverstone Edge is now engaged by Finance to assist with the set up of the Strategy implementation.

[1] Business capabilities are the combination of process, people capabilities, information technology and environmental/policy factors that at an enterprise level generate business outcomes.