Government Jargon Glossary
Dealing with government can be a difficult prospect at the best of times. The public sector has such a different culture that it can be easy to think sometimes they are from a different planet! One of the quickest ways to connect, and one of the best ways to succeed, is to talk the talk. With this in mind, we've put together a guide of some of the key points of language you need to know to parley with public sector buyers.
General Government Terms
MoG - "Machinery of Government". Refers generally to the structure, heirarchy and associated processes of the executive of government along with the public service, departments and agencies. Australian usage usually uses the term to refer to changes of government structure - to be precise, renaming or restructuring of departments and agencies. It may consist of creation, abolition or amalgamation of one or more government agencies, and may involve cutting staff or hiring new staff.
RFT - Request for Tender. An RFT is the beginning of a formalised government procurement process. At this stage of the procurement cycle, suppliers are invited via RFT publication to provide detailed submissions concerning their capacity to meet a specified list of tender requirements. The important thing to remember about a request for tender is that it will contain very specific requirements to which the supplier must specifically respond. Thus, RFTs are generally used for projects that must be custom-designed or, at least, heavily customised.
RFQ - Request for Quotation. Less formalised than RFTs, and generally used for purchases of lesser volume and/or value. RFQs are used by government to obtain optimal pricing on items or services that are fairly run-of-the-mill. Less rigid requirements apply to RFQs and the request will typically be sent to a handful of potential suppliers chosen by the person responsible for the tender. The requirement in most jurisdictions is for a minimum of three quotes to be sought out. Suppliers have to make sure that they are one of those three!
Gershon Review - In April 2008, once initial MoG changes had settled post-election, Finance Minister Lindsay Tanner commissioned UK public-sector efficiency expert Sir Peter Gershon to conduct a government-wide audit of IT spending methodology, with an aim of dramatically reducing expenditure. Gershon's report was released in October 2008, and as of mid-2009, was still being quite gradually absorbed into departmental mentalities. His recommendations focussed on cutting reliance on external contractors, upgrading outdated ("legacy") systems and adopting whole-of-government (see below) approaches to procurement. The Gershon Review has been very widely discussed in and around the public sector. Read our response to the report's release, detailing what you need to know, here.
Whole-of-Government - a term used to refer to initiatives, particularly in terms of governance, management and especially procurement, that have a wider reach and scope than just one department. Whole-of-government initiatives are advantageous in that unified mutual action can result in mutual benefit; to draw on a aphorism, "presenting a united front". Suppliers should be aware of this term due to the common parlance amongst government procurement managers. See shared services beneath.
Shared services - A growing trend within the Australian public sector is moves towards consolidating common corporate functions - for example, information technology, human resources, finance, and even procurement - into centralised bodies in order to remove duplication of labour and ultimately reduce costs and improve efficiency and coordination. Most of the Australian states have now made significant movements towards establishing shared services bodies of various sizes and with differing scopes of responsibility. The Federal sphere of government has not yet followed, but general trends within Federal public sector politics have indicated that a move in that direction would not be unexpected. It should be noted, however, that the states have experienced significant difficulty and setbacks with their shared services initiatives, and the ultimate question of viability of the shared services in the modern Australian public sector has yet to be answered.
B2G - Business to Government. The processes associated with marketing to and doing business with government. Constrasts with the more well-established acronyms B2C (Business to Consumer) and B2B (Business to Business). The existence of this acronym as being independent of B2B indicates that it is critical suppliers take a different approach and different mentality when marketing to government. The public sector should be seen as more than just a loose end of your B2B program.
DoN - Director of Nursing. In a health facility, the Director of Nursing is in charge of all nursing personnel in all wards. The DoN should be seen as a senior decision-maker.
HSM - Health Service Manager. In larger facilities, a fairly senior administration manager. More common in smaller (often regional) health facilities, in which a HSM will commonly be in charge of a whole facility.
Common agency abbreviations
AGIMO - the Australian Government Information Management Office. Coordinates and directs all activities of the Federal Government involving information- and ICT-related systems. The government of the day typically invests a significant degree of executive power in AGIMO.
DFAT - Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.
DIAC - Department of Immigration and Citizenship. A significantly large department.
DOTARS - Formerly stood for Department of Transport and Regional Services, and was a handy and memorable acronym. Following the election of the Rudd government, an MoG reshuffle changed the name of this department to the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government. Because DITRGLG is not as accessible an acronym, DOTARS is still sometimes used to refer to this department.
DBCDE - Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy.
DAFF - Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry. This department has extensive and deep branch networks across Australia.
AQIS - Australian Quarantine and Inspection Service. Formally, comes under the umbrella of DAFF, but AQIS is more than large enough to be viewed as its own organisation.
ATO - Australian Tax Office. Along with the Department of Defence and Centrelink, is one of the biggest three public sector organisations in the country.
DMO - Defence Materiel Organisation. 'Materiel' is a traditional military term, derived from French, which refers to procurement and supply management. DMO administer most larger-scale tendering processes for the Defence sphere.
DSTO - Defence Science and Technology Organisation. Under the structure of the Department of Defence, DSTO conducts and coordinates research and development work for Defence.
ADFA - Australian Defence Force Academy. Located in Duntroon, Canberra, and closely affiliated with the University of New South Wales.
Mail Room Glossary
University mail-room codes
University mailing addresses often include cryptic-looking codes that may cause confusion. In fact, they are usually quite simple internal mailing codes consisting mostly of building, floor or room numbers. Building codes are typically indicative of their name or the faculty or department located in that building. The following will dissect some examples to help you understand:
- CS4-07 - this address at the University of South Australia refers to room 07, 4th floor of the Catherine Helen Spence building.
- EAG25 - at the University of Newcastle, this refers to Engineering block A, room 25.
Military address codes/internal mail
Defence organisations typically use quite confusing internal address codes, which can present a stumbling block for outsiders. These codes, however, are deceptively straightforward.
Typically, these codes will take roughly the following format:
XXy-yX-yyy
Where X is a letter and Y is a number. The set of characters before the first dash is a code representing which defence establishment the address is located at. The other sets of numbers represent building, level and/or room numbers. The following guide to defence establishment codes will help you understand where contacts are located:
- CP - Campbell Park. One of the foremost defence administration centres. In central Canberra.
- BP - Brindabella Park. A private business park, located on Canberra Airport land, with significant defence infrastructure here.
- R - Russell Offices - Located immediately adjacent to Campbell Park, it is also a key defence admin site.
- NBH - Northbourne House. A defence office in Northern Canberra.
- F - Defence Establishment Fairbairn - a section of Canberra Airport.
- DNOC - Defence Network Operations Centre. Defence's central IT hub, located in HMAS Harman, near Queanbeyan and the ACT/NSW border.
- VBM - Victoria Barracks, Southbank, Melbourne. A centre for DMO administration.
- L - RAAF Laverton. Now formally known as RAAF Williams, but still retains its old mail code. Located in south-western Melbourne.
MDP - Mail Delivery Point. A code used in many organisations as a means of internally directing and sorting mail. Typically takes a form such as "MDP463".
Deliverability - this is a key measure of the success of a direct marketing campaign. It is expressed as a percentage of the total number of units sent. The industry standard deliverability rate is approximately 95%. A-ZGovBIZ is a quality database which sits at a guaranteed 98% deliverability.
Deadmail - Deadmail is the percentage, usually small, of mailed units which is returned to the sender for a variety of reasons. Addresses may have changed, people may have left their positions or, in many cases, simply 'rejected' the mailing and ordered it returned to sender. It is very easy in a large campaign for a small percentage of deadmail to look like a large pile, so industry standard practice analyses percentages of deliverability and percentages of dead mail.
RMB - Remote Mail Box. In many remote and rural parts of Australia, people or entire communities may be located too far from main highways to be feasibly reached by Australia Post's distribution network. In many of these cases, this problem is solved by placement of mail boxes on the closest highway to the community. Australia Post will deliver to these boxes, and the mail will be collected every few days. Similar arrangements are also known by the abbreviation RSD (Roadside Delivery) and RMS (Roadside Mail Service).
LVR - stands for "Large Volume Receiver". Large organisations, public or private, can apply to Australia Post to have a postcode designated to them. LVR postcodes are usually in unusual ranges.
Database Terminology
Relational Database - A-ZGovBIZ is underpinned by what is called a relational database. This means that data can be grouped by a number of common attributes, allowing users to target segments based on geography, organisational details or structure, gender, details of the individuals' responsibilities and more. You can also utilise multiple combinations of all these attributes.
Record - a record consists of a collection of information in the A-ZGovBIZ database which concerns one individual contact, and also our information about the organisation for which they work. Other, technical, terms which are synonymous are 'row' or 'tuple'. To put it simply, one record is one person on our database.
Attribute - An attribute is a column in our database. Each column is headed by a descriptor of the contents of that column - for example, "First name", "Last Name", "Suburb", "Gender", etc. A-ZGovBIZ data contains a total of 23 attribute columns, giving you an unrivalled depth of data.
Field - a field is a specific attribute of a particular record. This generally refers to one specific container of data, although it is occasionally used synonymously with 'attribute'.
Segment - in database parlance, this can also be known as a derived relvar, result set or query result. A segment is a cross-section of our database, selected based on a set of criteria. An example of a segment would be all our finance and HR managers in the metropolitan head offices (only) of hospitals, community services departments and local councils in the states of NSW, Victoria and Tasmania. It is easy to see how powerfully A-ZGovBIZ data can be segmented! Segments are the greatest tool to work hand-in-glove with our data to target as broad or as focussed a target audience in the public sector as you want.
Dupe/dedupe - Dupe is short for duplicate record. Deduping is the process of locating and correcting duplicate records. A-ZGovBIZ dedupes its database extensively on a regular basis. We recommend that clients conduct regular deduping of their internal databases. We also recommend that clients sending email to A-ZGovBIZ contacts dedupe email addresses - many smaller departments (and, particularly, councils) share one email address between multiple people.
Primary key - a primary key, in a relational database, is a totally unique code assigned to each record which allows for the absolute unique identification of that record. If there were two John Smiths on a database, in the same place, with the same phone number, the primary key would be the only way to tell them apart. A-ZGovBIZ uses a 4- or 5- digit numerical primary key for each record, and appends an alphabetical prefix to its schools contacts to distinguish them. Our primary keys are your way of keeping track of who you're dealing with.
Data cleansing/washing - Data cleansing or washing is the process of comparing one list or segment of data with another in order to highlight differences. It is often done in order to successfully merge two databases without causing duplicates, or to ascertain the accuracy of one database against a reference source.