CANRI Business Case
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This is the Executive Summary
of the Business Case presented to NSW Treasury in October
1999 requesting funding of the CANRI Program. The full Business Case is available in PDF format.
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In 1992 the Council of Australian
Governments (COAG) declared Ecologically Sustainable Development
(ESD) to be the primary platform and guiding set of principles
for environmental policy throughout Australia.
The concept has since been
supported and progressively adopted at all three levels of government,
being enshrined in a wide range of legislation which in turn have
influenced a variety of policies, and practices.
A recurring theme within many
of these initiatives has been the limitations imposed by a lack
of useful information, or ready access to existing data.
Natural resource managers
and the community require access to increasing amounts of information
which already is held by NSW State Government agencies.
Access to this information
is crucial to support sustainable natural resources management
and address the risks to the health of the community and environment
created by catchment degradation.
The Community Access to Natural Resources Information Project
(CANRI) is the first whole-of-government program to deliver
seamless access to useful natural resources information to the
community by:
· Unlocking
the potential of existing natural resources information holdings
by storing them in a consistent way that allows ready comparison
and integrated use;
· Harnessing
the power of the Internet to provide access to the State’s natural
resource information for the widest audience at minimal expense
to both Government and the community;
· Streamlining
processes for the creation of information by drawing on sources
of dispersed data for user analysis at a single point;
· Applying
common standards and protocols, allowing improved sharing of agency
information;
· The
application of advanced information technologies (IT); and
· Allowing
natural resource agencies to focus on their data custodianship
obligations, using resources previously spent on data supply.
A multi-agency approach will
be used for CANRI, under guidance of the NSW Natural Resources
Information Management Strategy (NRIMS) Steering Group.
The cooperative approach will
lead to integration of data and information systems, and to cultural
integration across NRIMS through improved understanding of natural
resources information needs, assets, processes, systems, and solutions.
CANRI is designed to make
these changes and will provide enhancements to data, metadata,
software, systems, and coordination processes as the basis for
improved access to and sharing of natural resource information
held by NSW government agencies.
The project is a cooperative
response of the State’s natural resources agencies to the changing
demands for their information, as recognised in the policy imperatives
and reform strategies of the NSW Government.
The advent of affordable computers
revolutionised the amount and type of information stored, and
the Internet has provided access to it for all the community.
CANRI now builds on these
advances to maximise access to NSW’s natural resource information
for the widest distribution of users at minimal cost.
A benefit/cost ratio of
1.82 to 1 is estimated for the project and approximately 85% of
CANRI’s anticipated benefits will accrue to user groups external
to the originating agencies.
Total Capital funding sought
is $4.684M over four years to 2002-2003 commencing at funding
approval in the 1999-2000 Financial Year.
The innovative technology
being developed for CANRI is likely to have implications well
beyond the scope of the current project, outside the natural resources
sector. It is plausible that non-natural resource data could be
stored, correlated, and accessed using the same technologies and
protocols.
The implications for all sectors
delivering information services to the community, or providing
custodial data management, are extremely profound.
CANRI may prove to be the
pivotal breakthrough towards a model for fully integrated whole-of-government
service delivery in NSW.
