Service Victoria is set to miss its digital transaction volume target by 10 million this financial year, with the one-stop shop confirming the performance is “lower than anticipated”.
The agency set up the new performance measure in last year’s budget [pdf], describing it as more reflective of "the service being delivered”.
However, the latest budget documents [pdf],releaseed last week, show that Service Victoria will miss its target of 25 million for 2022-23 by a sizeable margin.
While the government boasted the Service Victoria app offers “more than 100 services”, the fineprint of the budget shows Victorians did not transact through Service Victoria nearly as much as anticipated.
Against the 25 million target, the “expected outcome” for the financial year ended June 30 is now 15 million transactions, 40 percent below.
“The 2022-23 expected outcome is lower than the 2022-23 target due to the impact of lower than anticipated transaction volumes,” the budget papers state.
iTnews was unable to get an explanation from Service Victoria as to why the target was missed.
Service Victoria now hopes to hit the original 25 million level by mid-2024; the digital driver's licence is anticipated to boost the transaction numbers.
In the state budget, Service Victoria was allocated $90 million to expand the number of digital services it supports through its app, and to also create “faster and easier payment options”.
The state budget shows funding to deliver digital government services for next financial year will increase from a planned $23.3 million to $30 million, with an additional $60 million for 2024-25.
Active app users shrink
The Service Victoria app hit usage peaks during the height of the pandemic when it was used for mandated QR code check-ins to businesses and venues, and for vaccination certificate declarations.
On its website, Service Victoria said it has processed "1.15 billion-plus" transactions over its lifetime.
This averages out at an impressive 143 million a year; however, now that check-in functionality is no longer used, the actual transaction numbers for the past year are likely to be around 15 million, according to the budget documents.
Active app users are also way down.
The department of premier and cabinet said in its annual report [pdf] that in 2021-22, "the Service Victoria app was the most downloaded in the country after being installed on 6.6 million devices", and iTnews understands downloads have now surpassed 7 million.
However, the government last week said that "the Service Victoria app is installed on 1.4 million devices".
This is understood to be the average number of active users of the Service Victoria app each month.
A spokesperson for the department of government services said the aim was still for the app to be the "go-to... for Victorians to get what they need from government services", adding that "people are increasingly looking for digital solutions."
Assistant treasurer and minister for government services Danny Pearson said that citizens “want to get basic tasks done simply and efficiently”, hence continued investment in the “one-stop app”.
The government said last week that more services would be added to the app "in the coming year.”
Service Victoria is expected to meet its target in the 12 months to June 30 of delivering 20 new digital services. Its target for 2023-24 is to add 12 new services.
New cyber defence centre
Last week's state budget also provided $34.7 million to boost cyber security protections for “essential services”, which could benefit Service Victoria’s work.
The government said the funds would also go to a new cyber defence centre “to detect and block threats in real-time", which was announced back in February.
It added that $33.1 million of the funding falls in the 2023-24 financial year.
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