The one thing farmers complain about more than the weather is the negative impact local government often has on their business. Paying a disproportionate amount of local government rates compared to the rest of the community is a continual irritation and the red tape, cost, and bureaucracy of the RMA anytime they attempt to improve or change their business can be a real frustration.

Central government, of any shade of the political spectrum, has always shied away from reviewing how local government is funded. This despite the obvious fact that land values as a form of wealth measurement became inappropriate decades ago.

The current form of funding is also inappropriate for local government because it is restricted on how it can seek revenue despite continual increasing demands placed upon it by central government. The result has been little long term planning and millions wasted on planning documents to the detriment of investment in essential infrastructure.

The community at large are increasingly viewing local government with cynicism perceiving them to be often devious, inefficient, ineffective, and overly bureaucratic.

The real question is what can we do about it? Relying on any action from Wellington

The new information age has already changed the way business, farmers, and the public sector operate. This change will only accelerate as new technologies become accessible and accepted. Citizens have an expectation that services are delivered efficiently, effectively, and at times and places that are convenient to them.

Many citizens believe that local government is inefficient and bureaucratic and this perception is often re-emphasized when they attempt any form of activity that requires some form of local regulatory compliance. This problem is being exacerbated as central government increasingly imposes further responsibilities on territorial authorities with sometimes little regard on how they are funded.

Farmers of New Zealand has long recognised the problem of what we describe as ‘cost compliance creep’ and has focused its efforts to determine what solutions could be found to provide more effective and efficient local government. The result of this internal reflection is a belief that considerable benefits can be gained through new communication technologies.

The Project

There are five elements behind an E-local government strategy;

1.   Building services around customer demands;

2.   Making services more accessible and efficient;

3.   Using information more effectively;

4.   Greater cooperation and synergy between local government organisations;

5.  The development of appropriate strategic partnerships between local government and the private sector.

Stage One

It is envisaged that a comprehensive scoping study and internal audit will be undertaken by the participating local government organisations reviewing their current operations and interactions with each other, and with community organisations including Maori, non government agencies, and customers.

Stage Two

The findings will help form the base of a new Local Government management and service delivery platform that is envisaged will reduce compliance costs and markedly improved services levels. It is expected that communication technologies and particularly broadband will play a major role. Some of the elements expected to be considered are;

1. Services available outside standard hours.
2. Application for services provided via PC, digital TV, and mobile phone formats;
3. Teleworking: enabling staff to work from home;
4. Collecting revenue: shared web based rates collections system rather than expensive individual and incompatible software systems;
5. Online interactive customers services including provision of appropriate permits, licenses, and consents and an a associated transactional charging system;
6. Centralised internal information and content management library that is easily accessible so making decision making faster and information requests less frequent;
7. Intra-department and intra-authority communication, advice, cooperation  so reducing overlap, duplication, and time delays;
8. Upgrade mainstream financial and administrative systems to give online management information on finance and performance.
9. Providing access to community, professional, or business networks;
10. Procurement and paying for goods and services;
11. Booking venues, and provision of resources, courses, and training;
12. Providing one stop shops in partnership with other authorities and public services.
13. Improved customer request handling including proactive push offers and advice delivery by both email and voice.
14. All councillors online.
15. Development of community strategies and partnerships – including community participation, sharing of information, Public/private partnership in appropriate problem resolution.

Since New Zealand is considering rationalization of Local government at the moment it makes sense to consider new technologies to deliver services.