Council Agenda Management Software

Case Study – Ballarat City Council

Introduction

In the early 1850s, after gold was discovered at and around Ballarat, this area became the largest settlement in Victoria. Over the second half of the 19^th century Ballarat experienced more events and important changes of historical significance than probably any other area of Australia outside of the capital cities. Since the boom times the city has grown at a more leisurely rate, making sure that buildings of heritage significance have been preserved.

In 2006 the Ballarat City Council decided to replace its manual system for recording and processing reports, agendas and minutes with Infocouncil. The following case study is based on reports by three Council officers. Annie de Jong had considerable experience with the previous manual system, Samantha Moore with Infocouncil and Kate Robson with both.

Before Infocouncil

Reports

When asked whether there were originally difficulties with reports not being in a standard format, or not using a required style, leading to re-formatting, cutting and pasting, the respondents note "yes, many problems." They also found that late reports made a mess of sequencing or pagination. It was also difficult to change the queue order of reports.

Agendas

The absence of standard formats led to "…many problems."  It certainly led to "…significant inefficiencies in collating agendas and minutes." Adding attachments to reports presented no difficulties, so long as they were small. Frequently "…we had to provide a separate attachment file because the Word file was too large."

Minutes

Minutes were not kept in real time.

After Infocouncil

Overall the transition from Word templates to Infocouncil was welcomed throughout Council.

Reports, agendas and minutes

Since the introduction of Infocouncil the appearance and quality of agendas and minutes have become "really great." If difficulties have arisen the respondents have found the Infocouncil Help Desk to be prompt and efficient: " every problem we have gets fixed pretty quickly." The time lost by those who compile and handle the agendas and minutes is in the past. They are now "really quick in compiling agendas."

Ease of access to information

Similarly, access to information past and present is much quicker. "It's really easy. Just a couple of clicks of the button, really, and you're there."

Action sheets for following up decisions

Ballarat uses Infocouncil's Action Sheets module to advise people of council resolutions, and of what is expected of them. Of action sheets the respondents report: "they're really good to get the message across."

Responses to the change

Staff members are reported as being "all very happy", and saying about Infocouncil: "it's great."

Rating the past and present systems

Here are the respondents’ agreed overall ratings of the two systems: