In 2015, Service Victoria’s original Reform Program business case had the goal of consolidating 41% of digital government transactions (by cost) within three years. But a report by the Victorian Auditor-General’s Office has found that at the three-year mark in 2019-20, the 17 Service Victoria end-to-end digital transactions available in June 2020 constituted only 1.3% of all Victorian Government online transactions.

One of the main reasons for this exceedingly low rate of take-up is that the use of Service Victoria’s digital transaction capabilities was not, and is not, mandated for agencies under the Service Victoria Act 2018.  Being incubated as an Administrative Office within the Department of Premier and Cabinet (DPC), and therefore in theory having the clout of the most important ‘central agency’ in Victoria at its back has not helped either.

Service Victoria received a boost of $25.6 million in new expense funding (and a further $14.9 million in new capital funding) over three years in the delayed 2020-21 budget brought down in November 2020.  In addition, the Andrews government has signalled its intention to establish Digital Victoria.