Overview

The Senate Public Information Office (SPIO) is led by the Clerk Assistant (Table) and the Director, SPIO, Matt Keele. The Director and the SPIO team work closely together to deliver services to the Senate, the public and the department. The Clerk Assistant (Table) is also responsible for strategic leadership in relation to the department’s ICT dependencies, including liaison with the Department of Parliamentary Service’s Information Services Division.

SPIO produces and publishes an array of information resources so that people can understand and engage in the work of the Senate and its committees. This work is undertaken against the strategic goal of improving the department’s approach to publishing and sharing information and being responsive to the evolving ways in which senators and the public expect to find and consume information.

SPIO also coordinates the department’s involvement in forums and projects affecting the production and dissemination of Senate and departmental information resources.

The cost of the office for 2022–23 was $1.3m ($1.4m in 2021–22), with staffing levels maintained at an average of 8.1 full-time equivalent.

Information resources

SPIO supported each of the 56 sitting days in this reporting period by producing and publishing the following information resources relevant to the meetings of the Senate, and meeting corresponding performance results:

• The Week Ahead – 15 editions
• Dynamic Red (and ParlWork web-application) – 56 editions with an average of 105 updates a day
• Senate Daily Summary – 56 editions
• Senate Discovery – three episodes, and
• compilation and publication of statistics about the work of the Senate: StatsNet and Statistical Summary.

In this reporting period, the office’s work to develop and publish information resources also included:

• producing video, print and web resources for the Parliamentary Education Office (PEO), redeveloping the Federal Parliament history timeline, producing the online version of the Parliament in Pictures poster series, and developing a web booking system for professional learning workshops
• maintaining the Senate YouTube channel
• updating video training resources
• producing the department’s corporate reporting and planning documents
• implementing new page designs across a range of Senate committee web pages, notably the redesign of the department’s corporate information pages on the Parliament website, and
• ongoing enhancements to Senate Connect (senators’ intranet) and SENNET (departmental intranet) including the redesign of the Procedure Hub senators’ resource and the development of the Committee procedure and practice hub for secretariat staff.

SPIO also managed the Senate’s Twitter account, @AuSenate, providing regular and frequent updates about the work of the Senate and its committees. Through Twitter, the department has been able to increase its outreach and respond quickly to requests for information. Recent developments at Twitter mean that its use for this purpose will be reviewed in 2023–24.

Projects and support

During the reporting period, SPIO continued to collaborate with DPS and the Department of the House of Representatives on a number of ICT projects to drive efficiencies and to create new resources. During this period four projects were completed:

• Senators’ Interests Committee – new search interface for the committee’s webpage, completed in May 2023
• Report builder online phase 2 – implementation of a new system used for drafting and publishing committee reports, completed in December 2022
• CommDocs replacement – a new application to replace ageing technology that supports the management of committee documents, completed in February 2023
• Online Tabled Documents phase 2 – refinements to the website search interface, functionality to support delegated legislation, reporting and government response tracking, completed in June 2023.

Other significant work during 2022–23 which is expected to be completed in the next reporting period includes:

• Report builder online phase 3 – implementation of a digital workflow and integration with the Online Tabled Documents system, redesign and implementation of webpage templates for reports to improve accessibility and user experience
• Development of a new system to support the work and information management of the Legislative Scrutiny Unit.

Performance outlook

In 2023–24, SPIO will continue its information resource production, projects and support programs and ICT liaison, in line with the department’s strategic aims and to achieve its service delivery to senators and the public.

The office will continue to work with DPS and others to progress various ICT projects designed to strengthen and streamline the systems and resources that enable the department’s work. In this regard, SPIO will support the department’s transition to cloud computing and upgrade to Windows 11, and the development of a parliament-wide digital strategy.

In addition to the ongoing work noted above, SPIO will coordinate the take up and use, by executive departments of the Online Tabled Documents system, and will work closely with the PEO to redevelop the Australian Constitution website as well as other educational resources. SPIO’s work will continue to focus on capacity building throughout the department to support digital innovation to mitigate the department’s strategic risks in relation to ICT systems and resources and workforce capability.