AEC 2018–2022 Corporate Plan

Our intended state looks like this:

• We provide the public and our stakeholders with the best possible electoral services including, enrolment, election delivery, political party registration, and funding and disclosure.
• We maintain public awareness of electoral matters and voting obligations through effective communication and targeted education and community engagement activities.

Our environment is characterised by:

• Delivering electoral services is a key democratic process which must comply with the Electoral Act and relevant legislation.
• Electoral services must have integrity. They must be fair, impartial and apolitical, consistent with the AEC Service Charter and election service plans.
• An increasing and more mobile population with changing expectations of how and where they vote; different voting methods support accessibility.
• The need for electoral information and the obligation to enrol and vote to be understood in the Australian community, including communities and groups that may face barriers to participation.
• Information and services to political parties and candidates must comply with the Electoral Act.

We will build capability by:

• Maintaining nationally consistent service delivery in line with the AEC Service Charter.
• Being responsive to public scrutiny and the evolving external environment.
• Delivering services that are responsive to modernisation and change.
• Supporting effective stakeholder engagement.
• Increasing our ability to use evidence and data to guide and improve service delivery.

The activities we will undertake are:

• Delivering electoral events in accordance with legislation, the AEC’s event strategy and the election service plan.
• Actively managing the electoral roll throughout the electoral cycle.
• Supporting the timely conduct of electoral redistributions.
• Delivering joint roll services to state and territory electoral commissions in accordance with memorandums of understanding.
• Delivering impartial public information to inform eligible voters of their obligation to enrol, vote and how to cast a formal ballot.
• Using an evidence based approach, develop strategies for engaging with communities and groups that may face barriers to enrolment and electoral participation.
• Developing a digital portal to more efficiently engage with political parties as they carry out their legislative responsibilities and obligations.
• Delivering industrial elections, protected action ballots and fee for service elections in accordance with relevant legislation and rules.

Our intended state looks like this:

• The model for delivering electoral events is robust, nationally consistent and built for continual evolution through all phases of the electoral cycle – maintaining the electoral roll, election planning, readiness and delivery.
• We are always driving efforts to improve our enrolment and election management systems. This is designed to ensure we are planning for, and delivering, modern and secure enrolment and polling services into the future.

Our environment is characterised by:

• Prescriptive legislation.
• Ageing technology that has limited capacity to adapt.
• A dispersed network for delivery of elections.
• An electoral cycle where timing can change.

We will build capability by:

• Supporting continual improvement through the AEC’s election readiness framework.
• Using lessons learned to inform future election planning and delivery.
• Implementing enhanced planning, training, organisational change and an ICT strategy.
• Designing elections for the future that are governed by lessons learned, national standards and doctrine.

The activities we will undertake are:

• Implementing work priorities identified following the 2016 election at the next federal election.
• Determine the lessons learned methodology for the 2018–19 federal election.
• Identifying priorities for the next electoral cycle.
• Developing a business case to modernise core AEC election and roll management systems.
• Developing a future election design (2022 and beyond) for election preparation and delivery.

Our intended state looks like this:

• Effective, efficient and mature agency-wide governance arrangements are in place with assurance processes.
• We are strategically focused and organisationally aligned to deliver our expected outcomes.

Our environment is characterised by:

• A requirement for quality, efficiency, accountability and transparency.
• Compliance with the PGPA Act 2013, Privacy Act 1988 and Protective Security Policy Framework.
• A dynamic and complex operating environment, where strategic priorities can change quickly through an electoral cycle, yet a strategic vision for the future state of electoral administration is also required.
• Governance and performance expectations from the Parliament, key agencies and stakeholders must be upheld.

We will build capability by:

• Continuing to mature and streamline our governance arrangements, and further align governance to achieve objectives.
• Improving our project and program management to better work across functions.
• Promoting and embedding risk management and quality assurance in everything we do.

The activities we will undertake are:

• Supporting a funding review of the AEC and implementing the outcomes.
• Completing an ICT strategic plan which aligns technology with the AEC’s business vision and supports modernisation and change.
• Implementing an agency risk appetite statement to define ‘acceptable risk taking’ in both day-to-day work and achieving strategic objectives.
• Investing in a business intelligence capability to support evidence-based decision making and electoral operations.

Our intended state looks like this:

• We further professionalise electoral management and delivery. We do this through attracting, developing and retaining a professional and agile workforce.
• Our approach to training is centrally-led and nationally consistent. Staff at all levels have clear learning pathways.
• We engage with our temporary staff through the electoral cycle, continually improving and optimising recruitment and training for the temporary election workforce.

Our environment is characterised by:

• Work which is driven by legislation and processes that require a high degree of precision.
• A regular workforce across a range of electoral activities, that surges to around 80,000 on polling day.
• The requirement for a professional workforce to deliver public facing electoral services.
• A significant investment in operational and election-related training and rehearsing for AEC staff.

We will build capability by:

• Attracting, recruiting and retaining a professional workforce.
• Investing in our human resource and IT capabilities so we understand our current and future workforce planning requirements.
• Increasing the role capability of staff, allowing effective movement of staff across functions.
• Evolving the learning culture to provide clear learning pathways for staff.
• Engaging with key cohorts within our temporary election workforce to build capability and understanding beyond a single election event.

The activities we will undertake are:

• Delivering an AEC Human Resource Strategy covering the complete HR management cycle and embedding organisational design principles.
• Continuing to develop, deliver and evaluate training and development opportunities for our permanent and temporary workforce to build critical operational and professional capabilities that are appropriate to roles and levels.
• Developing a capability framework, and training and development strategy, to guide our approach and future investment.

Our intended state looks like this:

• We have productive and valued relationships with our stakeholders. They understand our role and our values, and uphold our reputation as an electoral management body.
• Our relationships with the Minister, Parliament and key agencies help us shape expectations and increase understanding of our operating environment—both our opportunities and risks.

Our environment is characterised by:

• Australian democracy depends on an electoral system which operates with a high level of integrity.
• Policies and processes must be consistent with legislation to ensure electors, Members of Parliament, candidates and other stakeholders maintain confidence in the AEC.
• A complex and evolving operating environment for elections internationally.
• As an independent statutory authority we must provide apolitical information and advice on the operational aspects of electoral administration.

We will build capability by:

• Maintaining electoral integrity through legislative compliance, effective processes and successful delivery.
• Continuing to build our core electoral and operational expertise.
• Maintaining our strategic partnerships to further understand and monitor the electoral environment in Australia and internationally.

The activities we will undertake are:

• Providing information and advice to the Minister, Parliament and key agencies on electoral administration and operations.
• Engaging and collaborating with electoral management bodies to improve systems, services and learning through knowledge sharing.
• Undertaking strategic engagement with developing countries and emerging democracies on electoral administration, consistent with the Australian Government’s national interest and foreign policy objectives.

Our intended state looks like this:

• Our organisation quickly adapts and responds with agility and flexibility.
• We have the people, processes and systems to respond to changes in the electoral cycle and stakeholder and community expectations while continuing to improve our election delivery and systems.

Our environment is characterised by:

• The timing of federal elections, by-elections, and Senate special counts are unknown and we must be ready to conduct these events.
• Balancing readiness alongside responding to other needs such as electoral roll closures for other jurisdictions.
• The requirement to maintain an appropriate level of election readiness and planning, balanced against other agency priorities. Extended periods of readiness are costly and resource intensive.
• The need to understand and operationalise changes in legislation, systems and processes on short notice and within limited timeframes.
• As an organisation, we expand and contract significantly throughout an electoral cycle.

We will build capability by:

• Continuing to build an organisational design and culture that is:

• agile, adapting to scale up and scale down.
• predictive of our environment and challenges.
• always evolving to be responsive and election ready.

The activities we will undertake are:

• Transitioning from the ‘implement change’ to ‘mobilisation’ phase of election readiness.
• Maintaining readiness to deliver a federal election event.
• Further refining our election readiness framework through lessons learned.
• Continue to evolve our organisational design, structure, and governance to allow increased agility in response to changes in risks and the environment.