As well as helping disadvantaged and vulnerable people towards self-sufficiency, social services agencies will increasingly offer proactive, lifelong support to all members of society, from employment and welfare support and payments to child welfare to care for the elderly.
Agencies need to intervene proactively and collaborate with an ecosystem of public and private sector partners to achieve better citizen outcomes. Citizens expect those actors to work seamlessly to provide services built around their needs. At the same time, agencies face rising demands for digital services and the challenges of operating with tight budgets and employees who are often resistant to change.
To achieve their objectives, agencies must harness disruptive technologies such as AI, automation and analytics and evolve their operating models to shift from static, program-centric organisations to become more agile and citizen-centric. This decisive transformation requires them to become "living" agencies.