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Under the Digital Experience Policy, the Digital Service Standard is mandatory and applies to digital services that are: 

• owned by non-corporate Commonwealth entities
• informational and transactional 
• new public or staff facing (from 1 July 2024)
• existing public facing (from 1 July 2025).

Agencies may seek an exemption from the Digital Service Standard due to a range of circumstances. 

These circumstances may include, but are not limited to: 

• legacy technology barriers that cannot reasonably overcome 
• substantial financial burden caused by changing a service to meet criteria.

Example: 

Agency X owns and operates an existing digital grants system using technology that doesn’t support easy interoperability with other systems. Agency X understands that the new Digital Service Standard is applicable to existing services from 1 July 2025. They assess their system and believe they can meet all criteria of the Digital Service Standard except criterion 4, without significant investment due to the technology barriers.

Agency X applies for an exemption from criterion 4 of the Digital Service Standard. In their request, Agency X provides information and evidence to demonstrate how their system is unable to meet criterion 4. 

After reviewing the exemption request and accompanying information and evidence, the DTA grants an exemption from criterion 4. In their response, the DTA highlights that any enhancements or changes made to the system in the future would need to be reconsidered and to apply the Digital Service Standard requirements or seek a separate exemption from the Digital Service Standard criteria. 

Under the Digital Experience Policy, the Digital Inclusion Standard is mandatory and applies to digital services that are:

• owned by non-corporate Commonwealth entities
• informational and transactional 
• new or existing public facing (from 1 January 2025)
• new staff facing (from 1 January 2026).

Agencies may seek an exemption from the Digital Inclusion Standard due to a range of circumstances.

These circumstances may include, but are not limited to: 

• legacy technology barriers that cannot reasonably overcome
• substantial financial burden caused by changing a service to meet criteria.

Example:

Agency X operates an informational website about their suite of services available to the public. Agency X understands that the new Digital Inclusion Standard is applicable to for existing services from 1 January 2026.  The agency does not believe they will meet the deadline for compliance, without significant investment and risk to other priority programs. 

Agency X applies for an exemption from the requirements and requests an additional 6 months to allow the agency to complete some minor system upgrades and meet the Digital Inclusion Standard’s criteria. Agency X provides the DTA with evidence of their system upgrades and their expected completion dates. 

After reviewing the exemption request and accompanying information and evidence, the DTA grants an exemption from relevant Digital Inclusion Standard criteria for a period of 6 months. In their response, the DTA highlights that Agency X has been granted a limited exemption noting that once their system upgrades have been completed, they would then need to reconsider and apply the Digital Inclusion Standard requirements or seek a separate exemption from the Digital Inclusion Standard criteria. 

Under the Digital Experience Policy, the Digital Access Standard is mandatory and applies to digital services that are:

• owned by non-corporate Commonwealth entities
• informational or transactional
• authenticated or unauthenticated
• new or replacement of existing services that are public facing.

Agencies may seek an exemption from the Digital Access Standard due to a range of circumstances. These circumstances may include, but are not limited to:

• legacy technology barriers that cannot reasonably overcome 
• substantial financial burden caused by changing a service to meet criteria 

For services being considered for integration into myGov these circumstances may include, but are not limited to: 

• lack of user access to myGov, ineligibility for a myGov account or where it does not make sense for users to have a myGov account.
• legislative or regulatory barriers preventing the service from being delivered via myGov.
• circumstances where Services Australia has indicated that it is unable to onboard the service onto myGov.

Example: 

Agency X is replacing an existing digital platform where tourists can apply for tax refunds for some goods bought in Australia that are then taken out of the country with the traveller on a plane or ship. Agency X understands that the new Digital Access Standard is applicable to new and replacement services suitable for myGov from 1 January 2025.The Agency applies the decision-making framework under criterion 4 of the Digital Access Standard. The target users of the replacement service are tourists visiting Australia on a temporary basis, even though the service targets individuals, myGov is not considered the best place to locate access to the service. 

Agency X applies for an exemption under criterion 4 of the Digital Access Standard. In their request, Agency X provides information and evidence to build a case that their system is unsuitable to be onboarded onto myGov. After reviewing the exemption request and accompanying information and evidence, the DTA grants an exemption from the relevant Digital Access Standard criteria.  
 

Under the Digital Experience Policy, the Digital Performance Standard is mandatory and applies to digital services that are:

• subject to the requirements of the Investment Oversight Framework 
• considered during, and after the 2025-26 Budget process and thereafter 
• new or replacement public-facing services.

Agencies may seek an exemption from the Digital Performance Standard due to a range of circumstances. These circumstances may include but are not limited to:

• legacy technology barriers that cannot reasonably overcome 
• substantial financial burden caused by changing a service to meet criteria.

Example: 

Agency X provides a digital service that supports users that are experiencing extreme circumstances. The agency may feel it is not appropriate to ask customers for feedback on the digital service at the time of transaction. 

Agency X applies for an exemption from criterion 4 of the Digital Performance Standard. In their request, Agency X provides information and evidence to demonstrate how it would not be reasonable for their system to meet criterion 4.

After reviewing the exemption request and accompanying information and evidence, the DTA grants an exemption from criterion 4. In their response, the DTA highlights that any enhancements or changes made to the system in the future would need to be reconsidered. If enhancements or changes apply, the agency must meet the Digital Performance Standard requirements or seek a separate exemption from the Digital Performance Standard criteria.

The Digital Service Standard establishes the requirements for designing and delivering digital government services. The Standard puts people and business at the centre of government digital service delivery. It guides digital teams to create and maintain digital services that are user-friendly, inclusive, adaptable and measurable.

IOF touchpoints

• State 1 Strategic planning: Data on compliance with the Digital Service Standard will indicate which systems or areas require uplift.
• State 3 Contestability: Assessment will be undertaken to determine if proposals have a plan to meet the Digital Service Standard requirements.
• State 4 Assurance: Monitoring and assurance will be undertaken to understand if the service is being delivered in line with the Digital Service Standard as planned.
• State 5 Digital sourcing: Digital Service Standard requirements should be considered throughout procurement practices.
• State 6 Operations: Compliance data will drive continuous improvement, targeted insights and a feedback loop to support strategic planning and prioritisation.

The Digital Inclusion Standard establishes specific requirements for designing and delivering inclusive and accessible digital government services through best practice principles, building on the criteria set out by the Digital Service Standard.

IOF touchpoints

• State 1 Strategic planning: Data on compliance with the Digital Inclusion Standard will indicate which systems or areas require uplift.
• State 3 Contestability: Assessment will be undertaken to determine if proposals have a plan to meet minimum inclusion requirements, as set out in the Digital Inclusion Standard.
• State 4 Assurance: Monitoring and assurance activities will determine if the service is being delivered in line with the Digital Inclusion Standard as planned.
• State 5 Digital sourcing: Digital Inclusion Standard requirements should be considered throughout procurement practices.
• State 6 Operations: Monitoring and reporting will determine agency compliance with inclusion requirements, using existing mechanisms such as the digital and ICT Approved Programs Collection, also referred to as Wave.

The Digital Access Standard requires agencies to make more informed investment decisions and reduce the duplication of digital ‘front doors’, wallets and other government digital services to provide people and business with a more unified experience when interacting with Australian Government. 

Performance of the Digital Access Standard will be monitored and managed through a Digital Register that will track current digital service access points.

IOF touchpoints

• State 2 Prioritisation: Assessment to understand if a proposed new access point has been considered or planned for integration with an existing access point (including in any indicative or high-level costs provided during this IOF state).
• State 3 Contestability: Assessment to ensure proposals have considered and planned for integration with existing access points and that solutions will be interoperable, in line with the requirements of the Digital Access Standard.
• State 4 Assurance: Monitoring and assurance to understand if the service is being delivered in line with planned integration to access points, in line with the requirements in the Digital Access Standard.
• State 6 Operations: Ongoing monitoring of digital access points to track agency compliance and progress in simplifying the digital service ecosystem, using existing mechanisms such as the digital and ICT Approved Programs Collection (referred to as Wave).

The Digital Performance Standard builds upon the Digital Service Standard Criteria 9 – Monitor your service and establishes the requirements for monitoring and reporting the performance of government digital services. Providing a greater focus on the performance of digital services, the Digital Performance Standard supports the Data and Digital Government Strategy’s mission to put people and business at the centre of government digital services. 

It sets an approach to monitor digital performance across components of digital government services and supports data-driven digital and ICT investment decisions. It will provide the ability to monitor digital services to make sure they are: 

• available
• accessible
• meeting customer needs. 

It will provide additional data to assist in assuring benefits are realised under the Benefits Management Policy (where benefits intersect with included metrics).

IOF touchpoints

• State 1 Strategic planning: Performance data will support and monitor the digital ecosystem and the identification of exemplary services, or those requiring uplift.
• State 2 Prioritisation: Performance data will enable evidence-based decision making to support prioritisation of new investment proposals, and understand their potential impact on user experience.
• State 3 Contestability: Assessment will ensure that proposals have planned for and will be able to comply with minimum performance monitoring requirements, as set out in the Digital Performance Standard.
• State 4 Assurance: Monitoring and assurance activities will determine if the service is being delivered in line with the Digital Performance Standard as planned.
• State 5 Digital sourcing: Consideration of the need to measure service performance throughout ICT procurement practices.
• State 6 Operations: Data will provide validation and increased certainty to government to assist decision making, including where metrics intersect with identified benefits. Existing mechanisms such as the digital and ICT Approved Programs Collection (referred to as Wave) will be used.