Image: Bernardo R
Councils across Australia have been placed under the microscope to have their information and communications technology (ICT) capabilities scrutinised, with a new report that’s found they’re becoming a lot more tech savvy.
The findings were published in a report by Technology Indicators, a company that specialises in ICT performance measurement and reporting, ICT research, comparative capability reviews and advisory for local government.
According to the report, while a capability gap between councils of different sizes remains, small and medium sized agencies have expanded their capabilities while containing or reducing ICT costs.
Due to the fragmented nature of the local government sector, integrating better technology solutions into council operations has always been a difficult challenge. This new report suggests that councils are trending in a direction that’s leading to more saturation of ICT.
Assessment criteria of the annual benchmarking of council ICT productivity in local governments included several factors – ICT capabilities, delivery of ICT-enabled projects, quality of ICT services and staff satisfaction with ICT performance.
Although there was no standout performer this year, several councils reported good results in different categories.
For example, Albury City in New South Wales has advanced to a higher performance quartile and, at the same time, reduced its ICT spend per employee, which is now about 20 per cent less than the average expenditure.
The report said that over the next 12 months, the average council ICT budget is expected to grow by about four per cent, with top priority given to ‘digital government’ projects.
According to the report, councils are also planning to increase investments in revisions of their ICT architecture to reflect the growing number of IT applications, adoption of cloud-based technologies, and increased volumes and data management requirements.
