Interoperability Frameworks
Overview
The Australian Government Interoperability Framework addresses the information, business process and technical dimensions of interoperability. It sets the principles, standards and methodologies that support the delivery of integrated and seamless services.
Interoperability describes the ability to work together to deliver services in a seamless, uniform and efficient manner across multiple organisations and information technology systems. Promoting interoperability between agencies is a key focus to achieving whole-of-government collaboration.
Interoperability improves government’s ability to design policies and services to the needs of clients and to derive efficiencies as a result of streamlined interactions both within and across agencies.
To be interoperable, agencies need to actively engage in a process of ensuring that their systems, information and business planning activities are managed to maximise opportunities for exchange with and reuse by others.
To achieve this, agencies need to grapple with diverse issues including:
- legal and commercial agreements;
- policy and business requirements;
- process alignment;
- data discovery;
- security;
- messaging; and
- channel management.
These issues are typically grouped into three major layers - business, information and technical.
The business layer comprises legal, commercial, business and political concerns. The National Service Improvement Framework and the Business Process Interoperability Framework operate in this layer.
The information layer comprises information and process elements that convey business meaning. The Information Interoperability Framework and GovDex operate in this layer.
The technical layer comprises technology standards such as transport protocols, messaging protocols, security standards, registry and discovery standards, XML (Extensible Markup Language) syntax libraries and service and process description languages. The Technical Interoperability Framework operates in this layer.
Agency interoperability initiatives are further supported by the National Service Improvement Framework. This provides a suite of reusable documents and tools that aim to provide enhanced collaborative service delivery arrangements across government departments and agencies.
Contact us
AGIMO – Interoperability Policy Team
Contact for information on this page: interoperability@finance.gov.au