Recent reports by PricewaterCoopers and others, have all concludes that many Local Government Councils are experiencing difficulty meeting the cost of their service commitments. Whilst the problem may be exacerbated in rural and regional councils it is by no means confined to them. Size is important, but as shown by these reports size in-its-self does not ensure sustainability.

Whilst financial concerns are a significant problem, the drivers of change are the potentially adverse consequences this has on the quality and responsiveness of council services, for example in, planning, community health, child care, road maintenance, the provision of cultural and sporting facilities etc.

Improving the efficiency, effectiveness and efficacy of service delivery is considered central to mitigating the risks of service failure. A sound ICT infrastructure and services platform is seen as an essential foundation to enable many of the proposed shared services initiatives. ICT business applications provide critical support that enables councils to collaborate in shared services delivery and for this reason the MAV has dedicated a major part of the resource to establishing an ICT shared service project.

At the onset of the shared services program the MAV sought input from regional meetings of Council CEOs and Mayors. This process identified a set of candidate projects that were evaluated using the DTF Investment Logic Mapping (ILM) process to substantiate that the need and benefit.

The process identified six core projects:

• Information and Communications Technology (ICT)
• Maternal and Child Health
• Records Management
• Property and Address
• Census of Land Use and Employment
• Front of House Services.

These six shared service projects have the potential to transform the way local government does business as they:

• are of fundamental importance to local government processes and interactions,
• underpin the way in which the local government sector communicates information to the State Government,
• will drive cultural and process change across the sector.

The critical factor to recognise with each of these projects is that they are owned and driven by the local government sector, which is the key ingredient required for success in shared services.

The MAV in collaboration with councils is now actively involved in developing business cases to support the procurement and implementation of these shared services.

To facilitate this phase of the projects the MAV has established a Program Office which will run until July 2009.

For more information please contact John Hennessy
Tel 03 9667 5525 jhennessy@mav.asn.au

The MAV has established a project wiki for the development of the business cases for each project. To gain access to the wiki you need to be an approved member of the project group.

Access Project Wiki>

For more information about access please contact David Platt dplatt@mav.asn.au