Government grants are an essential part of achieving government objectives and improving the wellbeing of NSW citizens. Available grants support a vast range of community needs: from disaster recovery to digital transformation, and small business assistance.
With significant investment into grants in NSW, it’s important that grant management systems are as transparent and efficient as possible. The NSW Government’s OneGMS is helping to streamline processes, enhance transparency, and improve user experience in grant management across the state.
The Digital Restart Fund has offered the project continued investment so it can set a new standard for digital transformation in the grant management space. We spoke to Kate Steenkamp, Program Lead of OneGMS at the Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development, to learn more about the project and how it’s transforming grant management across NSW.
Redefining grant management in NSW
OneGMS is an all of government grants management solution designed to handle the entire lifecycle of grants, from development and planning to closure and evaluation.
Since launching in August 2023, it has provided NSW Government agencies with an end-to-end system for managing contestable grants, typically awarded to small businesses, non-profits and local councils.
“OneGMS supports agencies to ensure ongoing alignment with the Grants Administration Guide while simplifying processes for grant recipients,” says Kate.
The platform currently supports 50 agencies or major branches and engages with approximately 140,000 recipients. OneGMS demonstrates a commitment from the NSW Government to invest in the modernisation of digital government services. It aligns with Mission 2 of the NSW Digital Strategy: Use digital to improve service delivery, support the local economy and drive productivity.
Designed with the customer in mind
The Department of Customer Service has supported the project with customer research to make sure it’s designed with the customer in mind. “Essentially, customers wanted greater visibility and accessibility to available grants, more streamlined processes, and the ability to track grant progress” says Kate. “There’s now automation that improves visibility and simplifies applications as well as a dashboard that tracks grant progress, which makes it far easier from a customer perspective”.
“At the end of the day, we're trying to create something that will work for government agencies, so we need to continually be making sure that what we're doing is adding value for them,”
- – Kate Steenkamp, Program Lead – OneGMS, Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development
OneGMS helps agencies reduce duplicated efforts through better workflows, saving time and resources. For example, integration into existing SAP systems is expected to reduce duplicated effort related to purchase orders and payments by 30 to 40%.
“Grant teams tend to be quite small. We want to understand how we can free up those scarce resources so they can focus on more value-add activities,” says Kate.
The platform is also focused on building enhanced reporting and analytics capabilities, which will give stakeholders detailed insights into grant performance and progress. This focus on data-driven decision making will benefit both agencies and recipients.
Lessons learned along the way
The implementation of OneGMS has offered valuable insights. Kate highlighted 4 main lessons gained throughout the process:
- Stakeholder engagement is key. Staying connected with agencies makes sure the system continues to meet their needs.
- Good change management is crucial. Acknowledging and addressing any initial resistance to a digital transformation project encourages adoption.
- Community building provides opportunities. Agencies are keen to learn from each other’s successes, highlighting the value of a shared community of practice.
- Adaptability is essential. Managing IT projects involves balancing time, cost, quality and scope. Flexibility and collaboration with suppliers and stakeholders is crucial.
The role of Digital Restart Fund and Digital NSW
OneGMS has received substantial support from the Digital Restart Fund, which provided seed funding in 2022 to establish a strong foundation. Additional funding for Stage 2 is enabling the platform to expand its capabilities further. “We’ve worked with Digital NSW on enterprise-level concerns like cybersecurity to make sure our platform aligns with government standards,” says Kate.
“We have built and continue to build functionality that will streamline processes for agencies and remove duplicated effort. Data is suggesting that there has been around a 30% improvement in time between grant application and first decision, and a similar improvement in the time between first decision and first payment”
- – Kate Steenkamp, Program Lead, OneGMS
Next steps for OneGMS
Digital Restart Fund funding secured for 2025 will allow OneGMS to continue its transformation journey and deliver an effective and efficient grant management system across NSW.
The next phase for OneGMS includes functional enhancements based on agency feedback, advanced analytics and reporting capabilities to deliver greater insights across government as well as the integration to MyWorkZone to enable the disbursement of payments. It will also prioritise continued collaboration with agencies to identify and implement improvements. OneGMS is set to transform grant management in NSW and is an example of digital transformation done well.
To find out more about OneGMS, contact onegms@regional.nsw.gov.au