Acknowledgement of Country

We acknowledge the Traditional Owners of Country throughout Australia and celebrate their continuing connection to land, water, culture and community. We pay our respects to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures and to Elders past and present.

Wherever you are in Australia, you are on the lands and waters of Australia’s First Peoples.

Statement of Preparation

As the accountable authority of the Digital Transformation Agency (DTA), I present the DTA Corporate Plan 2025-26, which covers the reporting periods of 2025-26 to 2028–29, as required under paragraph 35 (1)(b) of thePublic Governance, Performance and Accountability Act 2013(PGPA Act). This plan has been prepared in accordance with section 16E of the Public Governance, Performance and Accountability Rule 2014 (PGPA Rule).

Chris Fechner
Chief Executive Officer
29 August 2025

Part 1: Introduction

Foreword from the Chief Executive Officer

The Australian Government is advancing artificial intelligence (AI) adoption across the public sector. As the trusted advisor for digital and ICT investments, the DTA establishes strong foundations so agencies can pursue AI opportunities safely and responsibly. Our AI governance practices address the technology’s unique risks and complexities.

This year, we released several key initiatives to support agencies in using AI to deliver better outcomes. We published an AI Technical Standard to guide the design, procurement, and deployment of AI systems. Separately, we provided AI contract clauses to ensure robust risk management in government contracts involving AI. In addition, we developed AI procurement guidance to help agencies source AI solutions that align with our principles and legal requirements. Together, these resources help agencies adopt AI confidently and responsibly.

We continue to strengthen AI governance through stronger oversight and scalable accountability frameworks. Our AI impact assessment tool, expected for release in 2025-26, will ensure project teams consider potential impacts and align with Australia’s AI Ethics Principles. Each initiative complements our broader goal of responsible and effective AI adoption in government.

Internationally, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has recognised Australia’s integrated investment governance, citing the Digital and ICT Investment Oversight Framework (IOF) as a global best practice. The IOF and supporting policies—such as the Digital Experience Policy and Benefits Management Policy—are enabling more effective whole-of-government coordination in managing digital investments. They provide clear standards, robust assessment processes, and consistent governance to ensure digital investments are strategically aligned and deliver benefits for Australians.

We remain committed to enhancing the IOF, as recommended by the OECD’s review. Opportunities ahead include better state integration, improved digital proposal metrics, expanded advisory roles, and broader procurement functions.

We also aim to strengthen industry engagement. Australia’s single seller arrangements enable us to negotiate better terms for key technologies, while an independent review will further increase transparency and clarify approaches to existing and new arrangements. We are consolidating procurement panels to ensure digital services remain efficient and relevant to both buyers and sellers.

Through stakeholder engagement and industry partnerships, we seek to advance safe, responsible digital innovation and continually improve APS services for the community. This Corporate Plan builds on our achievements and prepares us for future opportunities in digital government.

Chris Fechner
Chief Executive Officer
Digital Transformation Agency

Purpose

Our purpose

We’re the Australian Government’s trusted advisor on digital and ICT transformation.

Our vision

Driving a digital government.

Our mission

Provide strategic and policy leadership, expert investment advice and oversight to drive digital transformation that delivers benefits to all Australians.

Our values

• Collaboration: We work together to achieve our goals.
• Respect: We make everyone feel safe, supported and included.
• Transparency: We build trust by being authentic and honest.
• Future Focused: We use our expertise to support the government’s digital agenda.
• Excellence: We strive for excellence in all we do.

Living our values

Our values guide us in everything we do.

• We work together in a respectful and inclusive way to achieve our goals and show our value.
• We build trust by being authentic and honest and strive for excellence in all we do.
• We are future-focused on enabling a future of public services, in which services are secure, connected, for all people and businesses.

Our strategic objectives

We will focus our efforts on the following strategic objectives in 2025-26:

• Lead government’s digital transformation strategy through our co-delivery of the Data and Digital Government Strategy and Implementation Plan, as well as leadership in policy design, strategy, advice and whole-of-government architecture.
• Oversee the short, medium and long-term whole-of-government digital and ICT investment portfolio.
• Manage whole-of-government digital and ICT strategic sourcing and contracts.
• Be a valued employer with the expertise to achieve our purpose.

Part 2: Operating context

The DTA plays a central role in advancing the Australian Government’s investment in Australia’s digital future. The operating context we are in affects how we perform our role and functions to deliver on our purpose and key activities.

Our operating environment

Investment Oversight Framework

Digital transformation is facilitated by a coordinated strategy involving government agencies. The DTA implements this through the IOF, which enables both the government and DTA to oversee digital investments throughout their lifecycle.

We play a pivotal, coordinating role in aligning digital strategies, policies and services across the government. We will work to create clear connections between articulated goals and coordinated digital investments, ensure our guidelines and controls are contemporary.

In July 2025, following extensive consultation and development, we delivered our first formal policy and guidebook for preparing Digital Investment Plans (DIPs), establishing a consistent, structured framework with clear standards for considering strategic uplift and a focus for the future when investing in digital projects. We will be utilising DIPs to help strengthen our advice to government and achieving the Data and Digital Government Strategy’s mission to establish a government for the future.

We will foster collaboration among government agencies, to drive cost-effective outcomes achieved through promoting the reuse of existing platforms and establishing common standards and enterprise architectures, enabling strategic alignment between business processes, data, technology and applications.

The IOF will continue to play a key role in the digital investment lifecycle, and we are committed to identifying the IOF’s key strengths, challenges and opportunities to drive the ongoing development and evolution of the IOF and setting up government digital investments for success.

Artificial intelligence in government

AI plays a leading role in reshaping the economy, society, and government. While AI has the potential to significantly improve service delivery and boost productivity in the APS, barriers to adoption remain. These include technical, financial and workforce limitations and risks. The DTA has played a key role in AI adoption through the establishment of procurement strategies, policies, standards, frameworks and coordination across government. Work has already commenced on the next evolution of AI policy to provide clearer expectations on AI governance, risk management, assurance and technical standards in line with international and domestic best practice.

An early highlight for 2025-26 has been the DTA’s successful delivery of the AI in Government Showcase delivered in collaboration with industry, to demonstrate the AI capabilities of Australian businesses, especially Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs), to work with government.

The DTA also actively contributes to global discussions on responsible AI through engagement with the OECD’s work on AI governance and deep connections with international counterparts. These engagements enable the DTA to share learnings and maintain visibility of international experiences in addressing key trends and policy challenges in the development, use and deployment of responsible AI in government.

Our marketplaces and panels remain one of our core initiatives, providing government buyers with access to evaluated sellers who offer a range of digital products, services and innovative solutions.

Following the refresh to the Digital Marketplace Panel 2 (DMP2) in 2024-25, successive tenders have resulted in many new sellers being appointed to DMP2. In the latter half of 2025, we will undertake a further DMP2 tender which will feature the introduction of a new AI Engineering category. Tenders will also be undertaken, inviting sellers to apply to the Hardware and Software marketplaces.

A strategic review of our whole-of-government digital sourcing arrangements is expected to be finalised early in 2025-26, with the aim of understanding the suitability of these arrangements and how these can continue to support the government’s digital transformation goals while providing value.

Looking ahead, the DTA will continue to have a significant role to play in advancing the government’s digital transformation efforts. The DTA is committed to advancing the Australian Government’s investment in Australia’s digital future, providing strategic leadership and policy direction that will enable better, cost-effective government services for all Australians.

Our people capability and APS Strategic Commissioning Framework

We’re the Australian Government’s trusted advisor on digital and ICT transformation. Our people have expertise and skills in:

• Digital governance, strategy, policy and standards design
• Digital enterprise architecture
• Digital investment portfolio planning, prioritisation, contestability, and assurance
• Digital sourcing, contracts and procurement
• Enabling and corporate services to support a responsive, capable agency.

In 2024–25, the DTA commenced a strategic workforce planning initiative to align the agency’s capabilities with its evolving operational and policy priorities. We developed a multi-stage planning framework that included analysing organisational direction, identifying skill gaps, and forecasting future competencies. The planning process was informed by branch-level input, recruitment data, mapping roles to the Australian Public Service (APS) job family framework and APS Employee Census data.

What became evident was that whilst we have an established governance model, the re-prioritisation of roles is complicated. This presents challenges for strategic workforce planning, in particular Identifying potential skill gaps and requirements to inform strategic decisions As a result, the focus of the DTA’s workforce planning activities in 2025-26 will be on building capability and adaptable skills that can be applied flexibly across different roles and projects to bring core work in-house in line with the APS Strategic Commissioning Framework. This approach ensures the DTA remains responsive to shifting priorities and emerging demands, even while we continue to mature our formal prioritisation framework. We expect our targets for 2025-26 to focus on reducing outsourcing of work in the APS job families of communications and marketing, and accounting and finance work.

Looking ahead, the DTA will look to build and implement a workforce plan that prioritises capability uplift across all levels as well as developing a shared language for describing required skills and mastery levels.

Diversity and inclusion

The DTA remains committed to, and benefits from, a strong commitment to diversity and inclusion, creating an inclusive workplace that reflects the Australian community we serve. The DTA will progress its next 3-year Diversity Strategy, developed through workshops with underrepresented groups, with focus areas that maintain high levels of engagement across the agency on diversity matters, celebrate significant cultural dates, and develop knowledge and awareness that strengthens our respectful and inclusive workplace culture.

We will continue encouraging broad participation in our Staff Diversity and Inclusion Network, welcoming diverse perspectives and experiences that strengthen our collective capability to provide trusted advice to government. Central to maturing our approach is championing inclusive and flexible work arrangements, which are essential for achieving a diverse workforce representative of the wider Australian community. These arrangements support recruitment and retention of diverse talent while enabling all staff to contribute their best work.

Our new Reconciliation Action Plan represents a major opportunity to deepen First Nations engagement and ensure our strategic advice reflects Indigenous perspectives on digital transformation. This leverages the DTA's unique position across government to contribute meaningfully to reconciliation while strengthening our strategic guidance. Combined with our new Diversity Strategy, these initiatives will ensure the DTA continues maturing as an inclusive organisation delivering advice that truly reflects the Australian community we serve.

Our digital and data capability

In fulfilling our purpose, we have made significant efforts to embed AI responsibly and strategically across the DTA. This commenced in late 2024 and into 2025 with the introduction of AI ‘extensions’ embedded in our collaboration ecosystem, the establishment of an “AI at the DTA” TeamSite, our full compliance with the Commonwealth AI Policy, and the DTA’s participation in the AI Assurance Framework Pilot in 2024-25. Looking ahead, we will continue to seek opportunities to innovate and strengthen our position as an authentic leader in secure, transparent, and innovative AI adoption across government.

We have also built our foundational capability that connects data across the IOF through an Integrated Data Platform (IDP). The IDP is transforming how the DTA manages investment oversight, centralising data, improving reporting and assurance, and enabling end-to-end visibility of the investment lifecycle, that is underpinned by a strong focus on data governance, privacy, and record-level security, championed by our DTA data strategy. This continues to be an important development for the DTA in 2025-26 as we continue to enhance our IDP.

Our shift towards a digital government focussed website is also continuing with the maturing of digital.gov.au. Designed to highlight digital government initiatives and deep linking to contextual information such as to the Australian Government Architecture website, we have seen a continued growth in stakeholder interest in our website. This has driven our increased richness of content on digital.gov.au, providing value to the Australian Government.

These efforts are anchored in the DTA’s broader digital strategy, which aims to modernise internal systems, uplift data literacy, and build a scalable, secure digital architecture.

We continue to ensure that emerging technologies are harnessed to improve how we work together as one agency and deliver value to government. This enables the DTA to demonstrate what digital leadership looks like in practice, balancing innovation with accountability, and building the foundations for a more connected, data-driven public sector.

Risk oversight and management

Risk management

We are committed to identifying and minimising risk and seizing opportunities to ensure we achieve our strategic objectives. We recognise that risk exists in all actions and activities, and effective risk management is important in balancing our controls, mitigation strategies, and delivering our objectives in a timely, efficient, and cost-effective way. Our work practices and regular, open, and transparent communication with stakeholders, enables us to quickly identify, understand and respond to emerging risks.

We manage risk in line with the AS/NZS 31000:2018risk management standard and have implemented the guidance to comply with the Commonwealth Risk Management Policy (RMG 211) and support the requirement of section 16 of the PGPA Act.

Our Audit and Risk Committee provides independent advice to our CEO on the appropriateness of our system of risk oversight and management and system of internal control.

Risk management is part of the DTA’s Management Framework, and is embedded in our planning, governance and performance arrangements. The DTA Risk Management Policy articulates our Executive Board’s acknowledgement of the importance of informed risk taking in achieving our key objectives and outcomes and a statement of our appetite for, and tolerance of risk.

Risk appetite

We take a measured approach to risk which is articulated in our risk appetite statement:

“The DTA has a high-risk appetite in its business-critical activities and activities which support our mandate to provide strategic and policy leadership and expert investment advice to drive government digital transformation. Overall, the DTA is willing to accept higher levels of risk where there is a clear opportunity to realise benefits and where risks can be controlled to acceptable levels.

The DTA is less willing to accept risk where it is not clear that benefits will be realised or where risks are unable to be controlled to acceptable levels such as work health and safety (WHS), fraud and corruption, and financial compliance.”

The following table provides a summary of our strategic risks and how we manage them.

Collaboration

We work most closely with Australian Government departments and agencies.

We also work with state, territory and international governments, advisory and oversight bodies as well as industry and academia, and people who provide or use government services.

We cooperate effectively with our stakeholders across government and industry to understand the operating environment, identify challenges and opportunities for improvement, and provide trusted advice to government. Our advice influences and shapes whole-of-government digital services, policies and standards and strengthens oversight arrangements for digital projects across the Australian Government.

We use the IOF and the DTA’s Management Framework to communicate and collaborate internally and with our external partners – clearly setting expectations for the direction of digital government. As an agency that coordinates but does not deliver digital government transformation, the DTA must be an exemplar in working with and through other parties.

Part 3: Performance

Our performance framework

The DTA is responsible for leading the overarching direction for digital strategy, policy, and services, while being independent of its delivery. This means the benefits (impact) are often delivered by other agencies. The DTA’s performance measures are therefore intended to assess our contribution to the impact, rather than assess the impact itself.

The past year was the first year of a new set of performance measures and targets that better aligned with our strategic objectives and key activities, with a focus on reflecting on how our performance measures demonstrate our delivery across the 6 states of the IOF: strategic planning; prioritisation; contestability; assurance; sourcing; and operations.

For 2025-26 and the forward years, we will continue to measure against these performance measures which will enable a view over time on our performance. The details and rationale for each change are outlined below. The measurement and assessment of these performance measures will be published in our 2025–26 annual performance statements.

Since our 2025–26 Portfolio Budget Statements, we have made only one change to our performance measures by removing Measure 12 Percentage of agreed internal audit findings that the DTA actioned and formally closed within the management agreed timeframe documented in the relevant internal audit report. This metric will continue to be monitored internally, however is removed for the purpose of performance measures as it does not directly align with our strategic objectives and key activities.

An overview of our performance framework to map our purpose, strategic objectives, key activities and performance measures is provided in the diagram below. 

Performance measures and targets

Strategic objective 1

Lead government’s digital transformation strategy through our co-delivery of the Data and Digital Government Strategy and Implementation Plan, as well as leadership in policy design, strategy, advice and whole-of-government architecture.

Strategic objective 2

Oversee the short, medium, and long-term whole-of-government digital and ICT investment portfolio.

Strategic objective 3

Manage whole-of-government digital and ICT strategic sourcing and contracts.

Strategic objective 4

Be a valued employer with the expertise to achieve our purpose.

Appendix A - Table of PGPA Act requirements

The Corporate Plan has been prepared in accordance with the requirements of:

• subsection 35(1) of the PGPA Act
• subsection 16E(2) of the PGPA Rule 2014.

The table details the requirements met by the DTA’s Corporate Plan and the page reference(s) for each requirement.