Modernising Government Reporting with a Data Lakehouse
What We Achieved In 10 Weeks
for faster time-to-insights and reduced storage, and pipeline costs
with resource optimisation and reduced data duplication
for compliance requirements through automated controls and lineage
The Challenge
A Government Department was undertaking a Whole-of-Government Indigenous Expenditure Reporting (IER) initiative that required consistent, trusted, and auditable reporting across multiple agencies and technology platforms.
The reporting process was heavily manual and operationally burdensome, relying on a combination of spreadsheets, emails and ad-hoc validation cycles across agencies.
The existing data landscape spanned Azure Databricks, Oracle Autonomous Database (ADB), and Collibra, creating opportunities to:
- Enable cross-agency data sharing without duplicating sensitive datasets
- Strengthen end-to-end governance, lineage, and compliance aligned to NSW Government policies
- Improve timely access to trusted insights for regulatory and executive reporting
- Enhance cost efficiency and scalability to support an ongoing, growing reporting obligation
The department needed to validate whether modern data platform technologies could support future use cases as well as ensuring support for Indigenous Expenditure Reporting at scale, while also shaping a future-ready data strategy that demonstrated commitment to Closing the Gap and improving economic wellbeing outcomes for First Nations people.
The Solution
TL Consulting was engaged to design and validate a trusted, interoperable, and governed data platform leveraging modern cloud-native technologies.
The solution centred around:
- Azure Databricks as the core analytics and lakehouse platform for scalable data processing and insight generation
- Oracle Autonomous Database (ADB) integration to support hybrid analytics and federated querying across existing government data assets
- Delta Sharing to enable secure, real-time cross-agency data sharing without data duplication
- Collibra integrated with Databricks Unity Catalog to deliver centralised governance, automated policy enforcement, lineage, and regulatory assurance
This architecture provided a robust, dedicated platform for Indigenous Expenditure Reporting, while also validating a repeatable pattern for Whole-of-Government reporting and data sharing.
TL Consulting combined advisory, architecture, and delivery expertise to ensure the platform met both immediate IER requirements and longer-term strategic objectives for data governance, interoperability, and cost control.
The Outcomes
The Government Department successfully validated a future-ready data platform that delivers measurable outcomes across trust, efficiency, and insight.
Key outcomes included:
- Trusted Reporting: 100% alignment with NSW Government governance and compliance requirements through automated controls and lineage
- Improved Efficiency: 10x faster time-to-insight through intelligent query routing and federation
- Cost Optimisation: Estimated 30–40% reduction in platform and pipeline costs through resource optimisation and reduced data duplication
- Interoperability: Secure cross-agency data sharing enabled without replicating sensitive datasets
- Cloud-Ready Architecture: Implemented a scalable data platform with modern design patterns and data modelling to support future cloud-native adoption.
- Data Democratization: Enabled secure, role-based access to trusted data with automated governance, lineage, and compliance controls.
- Workflow & Persona Enablement: Delivered tailored analytics and workflows for executive, analyst, and operational users, making insights easier to act on.
The initiative established a scalable blueprint for Indigenous Expenditure Reporting and demonstrated how modern data platforms can support Whole-of-Government transparency, accountability, and outcomes-focused reporting.
Accelerate Cloud Adoption with Financial Accelerators
As specialised Microsoft Solutions Partners, we have access to the Azure Migrate and Modernize & Azure Accelerate offerings, enabling us to secure subsidised incentive funding for Proof of Values/PoCs, MVPs and migrations to further enable your business. This funding catalyst, combined with our expertise, accelerates your delivery model with TL Consulting at it’s core.
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