Following extensive consultation and development, the DTA has delivered its first formal policy and guidebook for preparing Digital Investments Plans.
Digital Investment Plans (DIPs) seek to outline and define an agency's digital goals and initiatives. These plans emphasise how digital uplift can improve outcomes for an agency's provision of services. They do this while aligning digital investments with the strategic priorities, business needs, and user expectations of the agency.
"Our policy and guidebook for developing Digital Investment Plans aims to address critical gaps in planning," outlines Chris Fechner, CEO of the DTA. "It establishes a consistent, structured framework with clear standards for considering strategic uplift and a focus on the future when investing in digital projects."
From 1 July 2025, DIPs are mandatory for all non-corporate Commonwealth entities (NCCEs) subject to the Whole-of-Government Digital and ICT Investment Oversight Framework.
Six key standards
"During development, government stakeholders wanted a means to enable informed decision making on digital investments," explains Mr Fechner. "While also enhancing transparency, accountability, and efficiency across their digital transformation projects"
"DIPs also provide a valuable opportunity to align digital investment strategies with key government priorities outlined in the Data and Digital Government Strategy," details Ben Leech, Branch Head of Digital Capability Planning.
"These investment plans create a positive feedback loop for government to map a comprehensive view of digital initiatives. These would be used to identify shared challenges across agencies and opportunities to share solutions and resources."
To drive the efficacy of this long-term planning, our research identified six key standards DIPs should contain.
1. Agency overview
The agency overview defines roles and functions, emphasizing how digital technology supports service delivery and outcomes.
2. Current State Systems
Next the plan takes an important stocktake of existing digital or ICT systems in use. This includes expected end-of-life, planned upgrades or replacements, and significant system investments or replacements.
3. Digital Outlook
Digital outlook delivers a vision statement on the agency's planned use of digital technologies and data for better outcomes to stakeholders and customers.
4. Planning
Agencies build out a digital roadmap aligned with their business strategy and goals. The roadmap visualizes key initiatives on the digital horizon so agencies visualise their progress on a half-yearly basis.
5. Enablers
This section defines key enablers that support delivery of the DIP. It covers workforce roles, critical skills gaps, workforce capability, external assets, and dependencies.
6. Risks
Finally, the risks section defines factors that may disrupt the delivery of an agency's DIP.
Developing the DIP
"We were really pleased that this policy and guidebook was driven by genuine needs from within the Australian Public Service," emphasises Mr Leech. "Agencies came together with clear requirements, and we were able to build on those through a two-phase collaborative approach."
Phase one of the policy and guidebook's development involved a cohort of medium and large agencies developing DIPs using early versions of the guidance. This phase commenced in October 2024 and served as the first test to determine if the guidance was comprehensive, supportive, and generated the necessary information for digital investment planning. This round of plans was delivered at the end of June 2025.
As we received feedback, the DTA continued to evaluate and iterate the policy and guidebook. These consultations fed into phase two, which commenced in March 2025. This phase involves liaising with remaining the remaining cohort of Government agencies to collect further feedback by the end of this year.
Based on the conclusion of phase two, further adjustments will be made to refine the DIP policy and guidebook.
Planning a government for the future
The goal is to ensure that the standards are effective and comprehensive before rolling them out to the rest of the government.
DIPs serve as a pivotal tool in delivery of the Data and Digital Government Strategy's mission to establish a Government for the future. Adopting emerging technologies effectively requires investments be underpinned by modern approaches.
The Whole-of-Government Digital and ICT Investment Oversight Framework provides that comprehensive approach. It serves as an end-to-end framework for the government to manage digital investments across their entire project lifecycle.
DIPs sit under the strategic planning state which focuses on helping agencies identify capability gaps and identify opportunities to promote reuse and shared benefit.
"The DTA will utilise DIPs to help strengthen advice given to committees such as Secretaries Digital and Data Committee and Digital Leadership Committee," adds Mr Leech. "This advice is provided through products such as the Digital Investment Overview and Integrated Digital Investment Plan."
Read the full Digital Investment Plan Policy and supporting guidebook on digital.gov.au.
