myGov gets its funding back, for a year

The government will spend $134.5 million to “sustain” the myGov online one-stop shop platform for another year, effectively reinstating funding the service was about to lose.

The money is allocated for use only in 2023-24, and came after a review of myGov concluded that the platform was underfunded, causing it to “fall well short” of serving as the “primary digital front door to government” for Australian citizens that it was long promised to be.

The review called on the government to commit at least $138 million a year to sustainment and funding ongoing enhancements to the platform.

This mirrored the level of funding myGov had over the past two years, while it had active projects to enhance its user interface and to launch an app.

“The government will provide $134.5 million in 2023–24 to sustain the myGov platform for an additional year, to continue to securely support over 25 million accounts and connect Australians to 15 government services,” it said in budget documents.

The money will cover “maintenance of streamlined and secure digital credentials, such as the Medicare Card now available in the myGov app.”

The government said the money would partially come from “existing resources” of Services Australia, and from “user charging arrangements” the agency has with two others.

While no specific allocation of funding was published for future years - the government indicated this is dependent on its formal response to the myGov review and audit - it did indicate that it had “provisioned ongoing funding in the contingency reserve” for myGov.

The contingency reserve is an “allowance within the government's budget forecasts for items that either cannot or should not be allocated to specific programs at the time of publication.”