Local government library offers cost-cutting copycatting

A free online library launched last week allows local councils throughout New Zealand to share their knowledge and expertise in an effort to cut costs and improve service.

The Local Government Shared Process Library NZ is comprised of approximately 1000 processes developed by individual councils, including for such activities as building, resource and subdivision consents, wastewater management, environmental monitoring and liquor licensing.

The resource, which is supported by business process management software provider Promapp, allows anyone with a council email address to access and evaluate the processes, enabling them to adopt or adapt other organisations’ proven processes and thus save time and money.

“Councils are today under significant pressure to do more with less, to operate efficiently and deliver good service on a lower cost base,” says Promapp CEO Ivan Seselj.

“This is all about better utilisation of good thinking. Our software allows New Zealand councils to spend a few minutes browsing processes that have already been created by other councils, instead of spending hours creating one from scratch.”

One enthusiastic early adopter of the service is Taupo District Council's total quality manager Jamie Dale.

“Local government has a remarkable history of co-operation,” he says. “Sharing proven, valuable resources is a natural extension of that culture.”

As such, Taupo District Council was more than happy to share its IANZ-accredited building consent authority quality assurance process with other councils.

“We’ve invested heavily in trying to keep it simple and effective, which allows us to focus on delivering building control services to our customers,” says Mr Dale, who is delighted at the prospect of other councils and their ratepayers benefiting from that work.

As of today, 55% of NZ councils and 121 individuals had registered, and 2718 processes had been viewed since the 3 November launch, which is considered a pleasing uptake, albeit not enough to crash the service – unlike another recent, council-related online initiative.